Last year, the Kennedy Center Honors Dinner came in the aftermath of September 11th and only a week after, many of you will recall, the US-led coalition of forces drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. At the dinner last year, I noted that one of the first signs of liberation was the joyful noise of once-banned music spilling out of apartment windows into the streets of Kabul. It was a moving reminder that the arts draw their great power from the human spirit, and that is a force for freedom that no oppressor can extinguish. (Applause.)

Much has happened in Afghanistan and much has happened in the world since last December. Afghanistan is now governed by the most representative leadership in its history and is on its way to full constitutional government. With the help of the international community, the Afghan people have begun the enormous task of recovery and reconstruction. Boys and girls have returned to school. Women, who one year ago were virtual prisoners in their homes, are pursuing their professions as judges, educators, broadcasters, economists, business women and government ministers. For the first time in over two decades, men and women of Afghanistan look to the future with hope.

Elsewhere in the world, the international community is making it harder by the day for terrorists and others who would do harm to civilized societies, making it more difficult for them to move about to find sanctuary, to plot and acquire weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and the United States Congress have declared our national resolve that dictators such as Saddam Hussein must be disarmed of these terrible weapons of mass destruction, and last month, by its unanimous passage of Resolution 1441, the United States Security Council took an historic step toward ridding Iraq of these terrible weapons. And we all hope, and the President especially prays, that it can be done peacefully. (Applause.)

The news reports datelined from the anti-terrorism front and the latest headlines on Iraq often obscure, however, the many other ways we have been working within the international community to build a world where terrorists and proliferators cannot thrive. With Russia and China, we have sought to get beyond hostilities of the past and we are cooperating and working as hard as we can to help parties in war-torn regions like the Middle East, South Asia, and other parts of the world to find peaceful ends to conflicts.

We continue to help democracy take root on every continent. As President Bush has said, America will always stand for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. The circle of democracies now embraces almost 140 countries. Just one generation ago, only 40 countries could legitimately be called democracies.

The United States stands at the forefront of the global effort to stem the spread of AIDS. A few days ago in this very room, I co-hosted with Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson a World AIDS Day Reception for the diplomatic community, and I assured the foreign ambassadors who were here assembled that in the fight against this devastating disease, each of their countries will find a strong partner in the United States of America. (Applause.)

You should be proud, you should be so proud, that our nation has also been instrumental in forging a new global consensus on how to help poor countries, how to help them raise their people out of poverty, how to put them on the road of development; how to do it though good governance, sound economic and trade policies, and wise stewardship of the environment. All of these trends are good for America. They go to our most fundamental values and interests in a safer and more prosperous and freer world.

And the men and women of American diplomacy are proud to play a vital role in these far-reaching efforts that hold so much promise for humankind. It has been said that diplomacy is the art of the possible. At its very best, diplomacy, like art, extends the realm of the possible. Each in their own way, American diplomacy and our performing arts can open up new ways of perceiving and thinking. They can reach across cultures and borders. They can deepen understanding. They can brighten the daily lives of everyday people and inspire them to create hopeful new realities for themselves and for their children.

And in his or her own way, each of the extraordinary artists we recognize tonight have done all of that and more, for they have also given us their fellow Americans and people across the planet a tremendous amount of joy. James Earl Jones, Chita Rivera, James Levine, Paul Simon, Elizabeth Taylor have touched hearts, moved feet, fired minds and lifted spirits here at home and all around the world.

Our award winners have spent most of their lives moving in that curious realm between the glitter and the greasepaint, between adoring fans and not so adorable critics -- (laughter) -- between the hits and the occasional misses, between the gift of talent and the curse of the tabloids, between sudden inspiration and sheer hard work.

Tonight, we celebrate their artistic triumphs and their long and distinguished careers in the performing arts. We also applaud them for the qualities of character that always, always they have brought to their work; a commitment to excellence and a deep humanity.

My friend, James Earl Jones, had the heart of a lion and a voice to match -- (applause) -- long before he played Mufasa in The Lion King. (Applause.) Like the heroes he has immortalized on stage and film, he had to overcome personal challenges to learn how to become successful. Not the least of these challenges was a severe stutter was a young man. He found his deliverance from that problem in the music of poetry and the magic of acting.

Jimmy is an inspiration for young people today living in tough circumstances. He is an inspiration not just to young people, to people around the world, so much so that Warner wanted to make a movie of his life. They put it off, though. I wasn't available to play the lead. (Laughter and applause.) That's all right, man. I was going to do it, man. I really was. (Laughter and applause.)

I can't escape the brother, though. He gets even with me all the time. I may be traveling around the world, I may be in Kathmandu, I may be in Asia or Africa or anywhere, no matter what time of the day or night, trying to get some rest. But I flick that clicker, "This is CNN." (Laughter and applause.)

James, we honor you and we thank you, sir. God bless you. (Applause.)

Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero -- (applause) -- you are a wondrous and rare creature, indeed. Not just a phenomenal actress, singer and dancer, but also a native Washingtonian, and we welcome you home. Spider Woman, this town is at your feet. (Applause.) So please, go easy with the spiked heels, my dear. (Laughter.)

The Broadway musical is a quintessential American art form. As Alma will attest, it is my favorite form of art. And you, Chita, are its ultimate performing artist. I want personally to thank you for your show-stopping contributions to American musical theater. We will never forget Nicky in Sweet Charity or Velma in Chicago, and of course Anita in West Side Story. (Applause.)

But, Chita, I have to tell you that we're not sure we really like you here in the State Department. You give us a lot of problems. (Laughter.) Embassies around the world tell me about it. (Laughter.) I go to visit these embassies and I see all these wonderful young people hard at work, and especially the young people who are out in our consular offices and our visa offices. And every day, they have to face hundreds, thousands of people who line up. And they stand there in line, and every single one of them says, (singing): "I like to be in America. Okay by me in America. Everything free in America. For a small fee in America." Hola! (Laughter and applause.)

If Chita -- (laughter). Don't get me started, man. (Laughter.) If Chita has made people all over the world into diehard fans of the American musical, our next honoree, James Levine, stands at the summit of a truly international art form. He has led American opera with him to this Himalayan height at the Met through his genius as a pianist, conductor and director, and through his generosity as an international performer and mentor to countless young artists. From so many nations he has brought soul-stirring beauty to opera lovers across the globe.

Maybe it's the wine, but I've got to make a confession. I will put this very diplomatically. I am still working on acquiring a love of opera. (Laughter.) Sorry, man. Alma says I'm coming along slowly. But I want you to know that I have tremendous respect and admiration for what you do. I can even relate to it a little in my own life. It occurs to me that conducting an opera is like conducting multilateral diplomacy. (Laughter.) The goal is to work with everybody, let them play to their own strengths, and eventually get them onto the same sheet of music. And all the while you have to keep egos in check and chaos from erupting among the musicians, the singers, the dancers, and the occasional camel or rogue elephant. (Laughter.)

You have done it masterfully, gloriously, for 30 years at the top of the opera world. But if you ever get tired of the Met, I got a job for you at the United Nations. (Laughter and applause.) Thank you so very much and God bless you. (Applause.)

I got to know Paul Simon in the summer of 1991. It was after the Gulf War. It was a very intense period of time for me, but I went up to the Hamptons. You all know the Hamptons. (Laughter.) The white wine-swilling Hamptons. (Laughter.) And I went to a concert where Paul was performing and I had a baseball hat on my head. I had admired his work for so many years and I just leaned against a fence and enjoyed that marvelous performance.

So we met that day and we hit it off and we have stayed in touch over the years. Paul and I have also worked together on a program called The Children's Health Fund that Paul founded that provides mobile healthcare vans to homeless children and others in New York City and other cities around the country. Typical of Paul to give back to his community to those less needy.

Paul grew up in Queens and I grew up in the Bronx. Actually, it wasn't Paul; it was me and Julio down in the schoolyard. (Laughter.) But if there ever was an artist tuned to the infinite rhythms of the human heart, whether those hearts are beating in the boroughs of New York City or the townships of Soweto or the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, it is my friend, Paul Simon. Paul, just as it says in the title of one of your most recent albums, "You're the One." Thanks, buddy. (Applause.)

When he wrote Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, I'm not sure that Paul had Elizabeth Taylor in mind -- (laughter) -- but it's a great segue I will not let go by. (Laughter.) We all know the multifaceted, talented and brilliant performances of Elizabeth Taylor, from Lassie Come Home and National Velvet, on through Giant and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, to Butterfield 8, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, to Little Foxes and Private Lives, but for me, my indelible image of Elizabeth Taylor will always be from A Place in the Sun, which I enjoy watching to this day. I saw it as a shy and impressionable young man; this luminous actress on the screen clearly was near my age, but unlike any girls I knew, she was a woman of passion, with a capital P.

They also sensed that even back then I knew, as everyone would learn, that Elizabeth Taylor was a woman of great compassion as well. And indeed, she is. Her pioneering work to fight AIDS and care for those with the disease has saved many lives and eased so much suffering. Elizabeth, your inner light is so bright it doesn't just glow from those legendary eyes we all know so well; it even shines like diamonds from the soles of your shoes, and we thank you. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, today is December 7th, as you know, the date Franklin Roosevelt said would forever live in infamy. As I speak, our country and our world are under a threat from a very different kind of enemy, and President Bush is leading the international community in a very different kind of war -- the long twilight war against terrorism.

Yet I have no doubt that ultimately we will prevail if we draw on our country's greatest strengths. I don't mean our economic or military might; I mean the strengths we see reflected in the work and lives of the artists we honor tonight. America's exuberance and openness to a world of people and ideas, its diversity and drive, its decency and determination, determination to correct injustice and our nation's belief in the fundamental value of every human being -- these are the great strengths that come from freedom, and freedom holds immense power not just to defeat a foe, but to create a better future for everyone.

Mr. Jones, Ms. Rivera, Mr. Levine, Mr. Simon, Ms. Taylor, on behalf of the grateful nation to whom you have given enormous joy and upon whom you have bestowed the treasure of your excellence and the blessings of your humanity, I thank you and we all salute you. Thank you very much. (Applause.)