Bill Clinton: “Well, as I understand it, it does not protect them from liability for actual damages. It protects them from liability…”

“Well, as I understand it, it does not protect them from liability for actual damages. It protects them from liability for past punitive damages and still permits punitive damages if there is misconduct from the date of the agreement forward. Now, in the law, the purpose of punitive damages is to deter future destructive behavior. And the concept of punitive damages is provided not because the person suing is entitled to it because of his or her injuries but because you think the injuries are not enough--compensating this person is not enough to take the profit out of whatever antisocial conduct and illegal conduct the defendant was engaging in. So you enable--you have punitive damages to take the sting out of it. The people negotiating on behalf of the public--the attorneys general and the lawyers--as I understand it, got another $20 billion or so--Mike Moore described what it was--in a kind of advanced penalty fund--say, we're going to make you pay up front for the things you've done wrong. And that's how they--in the last few weeks, the agreement went from involving about 300 and something billion dollars to almost 370 billion. So, that--I think--I can't answer your question except to say I'll sit down there, and I'll try to evaluate that. I will evaluate--it's an unusual and unique resolution. They got several billion dollars more out of the tobacco companies than they had been talking about getting. Can you have, in effect, an advance payment for punitive damages? Does it sort of--does that, plus all the other things that would be good from a consumer's point of view and the public's point of view, would that be enough to kind of offset the troublesome areas? You and this man and then--[inaudible]--the three of you; I'll take you real quick. And then I'll take some foreign journalists back there. Campaign Fundraising”