Concord Monitor - December 3, 2009

Clinton presents Life and Liberty Award to Tom Lantos posthumously

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Historian. Statesman. Democratic cheerleader. These were just some of the roles former president Bill Clinton played in three appearances in New Hampshire yesterday.

During an hour-long speech at the state Democratic Party's Jefferson Jackson dinner, Clinton praised the Obama administration's positions on health care reform and the war in Afghanistan, even as he acknowledged that there is no way of knowing whether every decision the president makes is correct.

"It's not important that I agree with every decision they make," Clinton said. "All we need to believe is they're moving in the right direction. It's not an exact science."

Clinton spoke before about 1,000 Democratic activists and politicians at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester. Democratic Party spokesman Derek Richer said the event was expected to net roughly $250,000 for the party. Clinton also spoke at events at the Pierce Manse in Concord and the state Supreme Court, and he attended a fundraiser in Boston for New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

At the dinner, Clinton told attendees the biggest question once a campaign is over is not what will a leader do, but how he will do it. "The poetry of the campaign has given way to the prose of governing," he said, quoting a line from former New York governor Mario Cuomo.

Clinton said this is a time of "suspension and suspense" for Democrats as many campaign promises are under way but not yet fulfilled. "We've stopped hemorrhaging but have not started rebuilding," he said.

He urged Democrats to respond to pessimists. "I've seen this movie before," Clinton said. "It's exactly the same thing they said about me. 'He's never going to get anything done.' "

Clinton said the response should be, "You can't turn a great ocean liner around on a dime. You have to turn it around and keep turning it around."

He quoted Obama, saying that the No. 1 criticism from Republicans is "he hasn't fixed the mess they created fast enough."

Clinton acknowledged the challenges facing the country. He noted the growing income inequality, both throughout the world and within the United States. He said the U.S. fell from first to 10th over the past decade internationally in percentage of residents with college degrees. He cited the scientific evidence of global warming and of the need to increase energy efficiency.

On health care, he said, poorer countries, where Clinton's foundation works, have no health care system. The United States has "a lot of systems that don't work for the current circumstances."

Health care, Clinton said, is an "economic cancer" in America. Americans spend more money on health care than other countries, he said, with a lower percentage of people actually insured.

"Republicans say anything Obama does will make it worse," Clinton said. "We're already spotting our competitors $900 billion a year."

Any version of any of the health care reform bills in Congress would lower administrative insurance costs, lower hospitals' costs because more medical bills would be paid and improve the system overall, he said.

"You pass this bill, it will take your breath away how fast you start to make progress in health care," Clinton said.

Clinton addressed the war in Afghanistan both at the dinner and in Concord, where he spoke to an invitation-only crowd of about 40 people. That event was sponsored by the New Hampshire Political Library to mark the conclusion of renovations to former president Franklin Pierce's home.

Clinton said the number of troops being sent to Afghanistan is less important than what they do. Success, he said, means making the Afghan government "more competent and less corrupt," and ensuring that "people at the grassroots feel enough protection to live the way they want to live," not the way Americans would like them to live. Clinton said Obama must turn the war into a "home game," by enlisting the support of local people.

At the Manse, Clinton spoke as a historian, trying to revive the reputation of Pierce as a politician who attempted to create the political apparatus necessary to govern while trying to hold the country together despite the divisiveness of slavery. "To fail in a noble effort does not justify what history said about him," Clinton said.

Today, Clinton said, there are lessons that can be learned from Pierce. "He was one of a number of extremely able people dealing with an impossible situation," Clinton said, a situation where the outcome was "unknowable."

Similarly, Clinton said, "That's what Obama did at West Point," referring to Obama's speech outlining his strategy in Afghanistan. "The outcome of what he does is unknowable."

While Clinton supports Obama's strategy, he said the principal argument against it is the existing economic and social problems in the United States. "If we don't re-create the American dream at home, we can't succeed abroad," he said.

The former president said it is important to work to "create a more perfect union" and not to judge Obama or Congress harshly without remembering the difficult tasks they are trying to do, which "cannot be done overnight."

Clinton also spoke at a Supreme Court Society event posthumously honoring former U.S. representative Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, with the society's Life and Liberty Award. Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to have served in Congress, used his quarter century at the Capitol to become a renowned activist for human rights. His daughter, Katrina Swett, is a Democratic activist in Bow and the wife of former U.S. representative and ambassador to Denmark Dick Swett. Lantos's wife, Annette, accepted the award on his behalf.

Clinton praised Lantos for his doggedness - in escaping a Hungarian labor camp during the Holocaust and in standing up for human rights from Haiti to Kosovo.

"Every day from the time he was a young man until the day he left this earth, all he wanted for everyone on earth was what he wanted for himself and family," Clinton said. "Basic freedoms, basic opportunities and the freedom from arbitrary exercise of power."