Bill Clinton: “First of all--let's deal with the two things separately. I do not think that's a fair characterization of what happened…”

“First of all--let's deal with the two things separately. I do not think that's a fair characterization of what happened when we had the Summit of the Eight in Denver. Before the other leaders arrived, I gave one speech in Colorado in which I said, 7 years ago when the other countries met in the United States, Europe criticized America, 7 years ago, for dragging down economic growth in the world because our budget deficit was so high, for taking money away from worthy investments in Europe and in other places in the world by having high interest rates in America to finance our deficit. And we have changed that. So now we can't be criticized by our friends in the Summit of the Eight, because we have changed that and we're better off than we were then. But I said in the same speech, we still have a lot of problems at home and we have no cause for arrogance, and I outlined what those problems were. When I met with the other leaders, I said clearly we've been fortunate; we've created a lot of new jobs. The British also have now created a lot of new jobs. But what happens in this global economy is, as you create more new jobs, the more open the economies are, you have more difficulty in avoiding greater inequality among your people. So the trick is how to preserve the social compact and create jobs. This is a problem we share together; that's what I said. And anybody who was there in those private meetings will say that. So I simply don't think that's fair. Now, in NATO, let me say again--I want to say two things. Number one, a lot of the members of NATO have told me they do not favor five, that they understand that politically it's good to say----”