Enjoy. Up there with being named after Sir Edmund Hillary..At a campaign rally in Des Moines last week, Hillary Clinton ended her remarks with a poignant story, first told to her by then United Nations Ambassador Madeleine Albright. As Clinton recounted it, Albright, who was born in Czechoslovakia, was traveling in Europe for the 50th anniversary celebration marking the end of World War II:
"As [Albright] traveled around going from event to event, she kept seeing American flags everywhere. But when she looked more closely, she realized they had only 48 stars. And she asked people, where did this flag come from? And everyone told her the same thing. When the American GIs liberated Europe, they passed out these flags. Because remember, back then, Alaska and Hawaii weren't states yet. And Madeline said, "But you could have gotten into trouble having these flags." And people said, "They were like treasures. We passed them down from grand parent to parent to child and, yes, if the Soviets had known we had them, we could have gotten into trouble but we would never let them go." And when Madeline asked why they would keep these flags for 50 years, people said, "Because we love America and we love America's values." I want to be the president who restores that feeling about us around the world and equally importantly, I want us to feel that way about ourselves again."