Former President Bill Clinton speaks at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Saturday, Nov. 5, 2005 as a guest speaker at the Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series.(AP Photo/Janet Hostetter)
Posted on 11/05/2005 9:44:53 PM PST by NormsRevenge
MINNEAPOLIS - America's security in the future depends on how it acts today — while it's still the only global superpower, former President Bill Clinton told a crowd Saturday at the University of Minnesota.
"We should be trying to build a world now that we want to live in when we're not the only big dog on the block," Clinton said.
But he said recent actions at home and abroad have undermined that goal. A unilateral foreign policy that alienates allies is creating global resentment, and large tax cuts during a time of war are creating an economic mess and making the country more reliant on creditors like China — which could give America a run for its superpower money, he said.
Clinton gave an hourlong, wide-ranging speech to 4,700 people attending the 25th anniversary of the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs' Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series.
He refused to speculate on whether his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, would run for president in 2008.
"A Clinton family rule is you don't worry about any election except the next one, and right now Hillary is running for re-election to the Senate," he said.
He talked more about the global humanitarian work he has been involved in since leaving the White House, and argued that the fortunes of countries around the world are interdependent — tied together by economies and security interests that can't be ignored.
After Americans helped lead global relief efforts in response to the tsunami in southeast Asia, for example, public opinion of the United States in tsunami-stricken Indonesia rose, while Osama bin Laden's approval rating dropped, he said.
"We related to them not in geopolitical terms but in human ones," Clinton said.
He also urged the audience, largely of college students, not to become disenchanted by present political circumstances.
"Don't use your disappointment as an excuse to believe you are disempowered," Clinton said. "The thing that makes me the most optimistic is the power of ordinary people to do public good."
No help to you, you military secrets selling SOB.
No doubt Bill Clinton & Jimmy Carter will straighten it all out.
Former President Bill Clinton speaks at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Saturday, Nov. 5, 2005 as a guest speaker at the Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series.(AP Photo/Janet Hostetter)
great now he's going after international chicks
Former vice president Walter Mondale introduced former president Bill Clinton at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Saturday, Nov. 5, 2005. Clinton was guest speaker at the Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series.(AP Photo/Janet Hostetter)
His fingers always look like they're about to fall off. Creepy looking.
"A Clinton family rule is you don't worry about any election except the next one, and right now Hillary is running for re-election to the Senate," he said.
Another Clinton family rule is lie, cheat, steal, and betray.
I would comment on his crappy suit, but I might sound like the MSM.
He's right- we should start negotiating with the leaders of the Islamic Republic of France right away- before they come for our cars.
Great idea...I want to live in a world without tyrants like Saddam...
Clinton is such a little man. He thinks real people care about what he says. What an arrogant SOB. He's yesterdays tabloid news.
And Bubba, foreign women don't like being told to ice it after either.
Globalists will build the breadlines...and you all must wait in them - equally!
I guess he could tell us volumes about the international merit behind dropping cluster bombs on Serbian school children on Easter Monday?
I hope that I live long enough to come within spitting distance of that walking piece of fight.
We are doing just that. The problem is that we are right and the rest of the world has its head up its behind.
Why would USA be better off if there was other super powers?
Isn't dumb how ex rat Presidents want to always horn in on the action? With Clinton it's always been about him. Even at Rosa Park's funeral he made it about him. Saying something to the effect that I remember that day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. I was a 9 year old kid riding in the front of those segreated buses, but the day after I guess he was so inspired that he went to the back of the bus. So what he is saying is that he too saw the injustice at such a young age. Always about him. Just give glory to Rosa Parks who made that sacrifice.
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