Democratic Party In Financial Straits
QUESTION: Does your administration...
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) Many Americans simply don't understand. The president of the United States says "I don't know" that there's a problem because I haven't necessarily been given...
CLINTON: Well, I think there is -- yes. I think there is. But if I knew that one existed, I would agree that there was a problem. But I don't know it. And I'm still not sure that there was.
I just have to -- I have to trust the attorney general to make sure that the National Security Council gets the information that we need to make good national security judgments here.
I think, for example, in the Khobar Towers incident, there is absolutely not a shred of evidence that there's anything that we have been denied. And so, if I knew that there was, and I knew what it was, and I thought there was a mistake, I'd be happy to say that there's an honest disagreement here. But I just don't know that there is one.
QUESTION: Has your administration been hamstrung in terms of ambassadorial appointments at the State Department and so forth because of all of these investigations on the...
CLINTON: No.
QUESTION: ...campaign?
CLINTON: No, not at all. As a matter of fact, we've been working on getting ready for the next round of ambassadorial appointments. I approved a small number of them -- oh, probably a couple of weeks ago so we could move in critical countries, but the others, we're trying to do on a schedule which at least guarantees that all the ambassadors now serving will do the traditional three- year tour of duty.
So we have some time on them. But we've worked very hard for the last month or so on that, and I don't see those two things as in conflict or a problem at all.
Thank you.
Huh?
QUESTION: How do you feel?
CLINTON: I feel fine. Every day I'm getting a little more mobile, and I'm getting able to -- you know -- do a little more. And I'll tell you one thing. You know, I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
(LAUGHTER)
But it's been a very enlightening experience, a very humbling experience. And the respect that I feel now for people who spend all day every day in a wheelchair, or people who spend all day every day in braces and on crutches is enormous. I mean, the dignity and the strength of character that it takes to kind of organize your life and carry it out if you're always subject to some sort of significant physical disability is enormous.
And these are things that we all sometimes see. But when you felt just a little taste of it, when you realize what it means to be able to just navigate and do the basic things in life, just to dress yourself for the first time and I couldn't do it, for example, it gives -- it just makes you understand that the rest of us in society who've been fortunate enough to have full use of our physical facilities owe an enormous amount of respect and sensitivity to people who don't.
It's just been a stunning experience for me. I mean, I just -- I will never again see a person who has to deal with a disability in the same light again. I mean, it's just -- it had a profound impact. It's nothing I didn't know before, but feeling it and knowing it are two different things.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
CLINTON: Thank you.
QUESTION: Is your doctor after you all the time?
CLINTON: Yes. She just wants to make sure I don't blow it.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)?
CLINTON: These crutches are quite good, you know. They can -- this way you can walk by putting your bad leg down and keeping the weight here. Otherwise, you're going to have to just do this and then kind of go like...
But if you can walk, it's a lot easier. The chances of falling...
QUESTION: Better than the traditional crutches?
CLINTON: Yes, much better.
END
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