Transcript From Portrait Unveiling Ceremony

One earnest man from Philadelphia wrote a three page, single- spaced typed letter saying, "If you would just let me straighten your nose and take the bags out from under your eyes, you would be the best-looking person ever to run for president."It's like, "If you only had a different face you'd be handsome."

(LAUGHTER)

So I wrote the man a letter back and told him I worked hard for this face and I thought I would live in it a little while longer.

(LAUGHTER)

But I say this because the president, by his generous words to Hillary and me today, has proved once again that in the end, we are held together by this grand system of ours that permits us to debate and struggle and fight for what we believe is right.

W. CLINTON:And because it's free, because it is a system of majority rule and minority rights, we're still around here after over 200 years.And most of the time, we get it right.And I'm honored to be a small part of it.

I was thinking of, President and Mrs. Bush, on the way over here today, which ones of these pictures I liked the most, and in the darkest days, which ones helped me the most.

I like John Singer Sargent's portrait of Theodore Roosevelt over there.But there's one over in the Cabinet Room by a man named Laszlo of Theodore Roosevelt.I used to look at it all the time when I felt bad and I worried, "Was the war in Bosnia going to come out all right? Would the Kosovar refugees ever be able to go home?"

Because if you look at that picture, Theodore Roosevelt, who was known as our most macho, bully, self-confident president, you look at that picture and you see here's a human being who's scared to death and not sure it's going to come out all right.And he does the right thing, anyway.That's what I saw in that picture.

So I thank Simmie Knox for giving Hillary and me the chance to be part of history.

You know, most of the time, until you get your picture hung like this, the only artist to draw you are cartoonists.

(LAUGHTER)

When I started out, they drew me in a baby carriage in Arkansas. Then I graduated to a tricycle, then a bicycle.And when I finally got elected president, the guy that had started me out in the baby carriage actually put Hillary and me in a pick-up truck with a hunting dog to come to Washington.

(LAUGHTER)

Then I got nominated and one guy, when I became the nominee, did a cartoon showing me as the victim of a chainsaw massacre with all my various parts all over the cartoon.So to have this wonderful picture is moving.

W. CLINTON:Simmie Knox came to us when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recommended him to Hillary.And I looked at his work and was profoundly moved.

He too is a great American story.Born in 1935, in Aliceville, Alabama, to a sharecropping family, he wound up painting the portraits of the president, the first lady, former Justice Marshall, my friend Hank Aaron, Justice Ginsburg and many others, because he's good at what he does.

And that, too, is a part of America's promise, that people should rise as far as they can and do whatever their dreams indicate if they're good enough to do it.

So, Simmie, we're grateful to you and I thank you.And I'm glad you and your family are here today.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. President, thank you again for having us.It was an honor to join you for the third time in a few days.At President Reagan's funeral, at the World War II memorial.I also want to congratulate you on your father's successful parachute jump yesterday.

(LAUGHTER)

I didn't want him to do it, because the last time he jumped out of an airplane, I fell off a nine-inch step and nearly tore my leg off.

(LAUGHTER)