Former President Bill Clinton addressed a crowd of more than 5000 at the First United Bank Center Tuesday, April 24 as part of West Texas A&M University’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
WTAMU donated $100,000 to the United Flight 93 Memorial, prompting Clinton to waive his speaking fee. The National Park Service matched the donation, bringing the total to $200,000.
Clinton spoke first about the Americans on Flight 93 who sacrificed their lives to regain control of the plane from terrorist hijackers. Clinton compared their sacrifice to that of the Spartans at the pass of Thermopolis and the Texan soldiers at the Alamo.
Clinton also spoke about his visits to Africa and Haiti and his work with Clinton Initiative projects through the Clinton Foundation to better the lives of their citizens. Clinton has worked to help provide sanitization, clean water, shelter and food for various nations throughout Southern Latin America and Africa.
One point of Clinton’s speech was that Republicans and Democrats should put their differences aside and come together to focus on resolving the nation’s problems.
“Half of one percent of our genes is the only thing that makes us different.” Clinton said. “If we focus on the 99.95% of what makes us the same, and put our political differences aside, we can resolve our problems.”
Clinton also made the point that no one is always right and nothing is perfect in politics.
“No one is right 100% of the time, but even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Clinton said.
