Bill Clinton: “That's like asking me to pick a team in the World Cup. [Laughter] Once we were eliminated I declined to do that. Well…”

“That's like asking me to pick a team in the World Cup. [Laughter] Once we were eliminated I declined to do that. Well, the relationship we have with the two countries is different, you know. I mean the history is different. The relationship we have with the U.K. goes back to our founding. Even though we fought two wars with them early in the last century, it is unique in ways that nothing can ever replace because we grew out of them. The relationship we have with Germany is rooted in the stream of immigration that goes back 200 years. Indeed, as Chancellor Kohl said, most Americans might be surprised to know that German-Americans are the largest ethnic group in the United States, about 58 million of them. But what we have shared since World War II, I think, is astonishing. And I think 200, 300, 400 years from now historians will look back on this period, this 50 years, and just marvel at what happened in the aftermath of that awful war. And it has given us a sense, I think, common partnership that is unique now because so many of our challenges are just to Germany's east. What are we going to do in Central and Eastern Europe? What will be our new relationship with Russia, will it continue as strongly as it now seems to be doing? So there's a way in which the United States and Germany have a more immediate and tangible concern with these issues, even than our other friends in Europe. And so history has dealt us this hand, and a very fortunate one it is, I think. Thank you very much.”