Bill Clinton: “Baltimore, Maryland December 23, 1998 Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, if Christa Spangler hasn't put us in the…”

“Baltimore, Maryland December 23, 1998 Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, if Christa Spangler hasn't put us in the spirit of the season, I don't know who could. Didn't she do a magnificent job? [Applause] Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Cuomo, for your remarks and your remarkable work. I want to say at this holiday season, the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the season of Hanukkah for Jewish-Americans, and Christmas for those of us who are Christians, when we are told we should count our blessings, one of the things that has been a great blessing for me in the last 6 years as President has been my proximity to and involvement with the city of Baltimore and the State of Maryland. I have--as you heard Mayor Schmoke say, starting in 1992, I have visited the churches here; I have walked the streets here; I have seen the children here in their schools and their environmental projects and in other ways. I have loved this State. I have been to Annapolis and to Clinton, Maryland--[laughter]--and to Montgomery County--and Wayne--and to, obviously so many times, to Camp David and the environs there. And I feel very blessed. But I was looking at your elected Representatives: Elijah Cummings, who is very well named; he sounds like a prophet about half the time; and I was thinking that there is no State in the country that has a pair of Senators with quite the combination of intelligence, compassion, and energy, and plain old pull that Maryland does.…”