Bill Clinton: “Thank you very much. I want to welcome all of you again to the White House, thank the Marine orchestra for providing the…”

“Thank you very much. I want to welcome all of you again to the White House, thank the Marine orchestra for providing the wonderful music, and tell you how very glad that Hillary and I are that you could all join us this evening to renew old friendships, begin new ones, and celebrate a new and challenging era in world affairs. I'm especially glad that we could be joined this evening by the Vice President and Mrs. Gore and by Secretary of State and Mrs. Christopher and by the dean of our diplomatic corps, Ambassador and Mrs. Pondi. The gathering of the Washington Diplomatic Corps offers us a good opportunity to become better acquainted and an opportunity to reflect on the state of the world we share. Standing here, we are within sight, just behind us, of the magnificent memorial to our third President and our first Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. He acutely understood the value of diplomacy to the United States. He also is the embodiment of our eternal quest for democracy. His words extolling democracy and human dignity still resonate in the hearts of all Americans and of people around the world. None of us here this evening can say we represent a nation that has arrived at a perfect solution for the problems of human governance. There will never be a perfect solution for the problems of people who themselves are not perfect.…”