Posted on 05/21/2007 1:05:58 PM PDT by pissant
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) for yielding me this time, and I want to thank my great friend also for not only helping to preside over this special tribute, but for everything that he did in helping to lead the California delegation to be a source of strength for President Reagan when he put forth those monumental changes in the direction of our government.
I have listened to his statements and just now to the statement of the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), and many others, in talking about this wonderful American, Ronald Reagan; and I thought I might just touch on a couple of the things he did in the way of national security.
We have short memories, Mr. Speaker; and President Reagan was not always popular, especially with the media and often with our European allies. I can remember in the 1980s, when he responded to the Soviet Union's ringing Western Europe with the SS-20 missiles and he started to move those Persian missiles and ground launch cruise missiles into Europe to offset the Soviet strength of their strategic programs and their intermediate range ballistic missiles that they were moving in. And there were massive demonstrations against Ronald Reagan and against those who supported him in Europe and lots of sniping by the press in this country.
And yet because of that strength and because he rebuilt national security, the Russians at one point, especially after the Reykjavik summit when he refused to give up the Strategic Defense Initiative, that is missile defense, the right of Americans to defend themselves against incoming ballistic missiles, after he did that, there was lots of hand-wringing among the elite media and lots of our European allies who said, there it goes, the last chance for peace, and lo and behold, the Russians picked up the phone and said, can we talk?
Ronald Reagan at that point started to negotiate with the Soviet Union, and not just to negotiate a peace, but to negotiate the disassembly of the Soviet empire, the tear-down of the Soviet empire, which is manifest today in numerous free states where once there was one state ruled by tyranny.
Mr. Speaker, I remember the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) was present as one of our senior members, and the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) had not been elected yet, along with the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), and Bob Lagomarsino, and John Rousselot, and Chip Pashayan, and my colleague Bill Lowery, and Bobby Fever, new Republicans who had come in in the Reagan win of 1980, and the President invited us to Blair House. The President invited us to Blair House even while President Carter was still in the White House. We were standing in the foyer, celebrated this victory of our Commander-in-Chief-to-be because he had not been sworn in yet, and the President-elect came down the stairs, and he talked to us about being up on his ranch in Santa Barbara and killing an especially big rattlesnake the day before while he was cutting brush. We had a great time talking with the President-elect. After a while he said, I am tired, I am going to go upstairs and hit the hay. He said, you guys turn off the lights when you leave. He went right upstairs; we continued to have a good time. That represented that western hospitality, that great charm that Ronald Reagan had that brought so many people, attracted so many people, even people of very different political persuasion.
My son Sam was not even born in those days when we first came in. I remember the picture of the cowboy that the President drew for my other son Duncan, who is now a United States marine and deployed overseas.
I think the one thing that this President sold in boatloads was inspiration. He was great at inspiration. He realized a little secret, and that is this country runs on inspiration. Whether it is the markets or the economy or people deciding whether or not they are going to join the uniformed services, inspiration is the fuel that this country runs on, and that is something that Ronald Reagan had an endless supply of.
He was tough during the tough times. You have to have good endurance to be a good President, and he had great endurance. He was able to handle the difficult times, the times when he was not real popular, and outlast his critics. It has been kind of fun in the last couple of days to watch people who criticized him very severely to seem now to remember that he was not such a bad guy after all. Not only was he not such a bad guy, but he brought this country together as a family. He was, of course, the head of the family.
It is a time for us to mourn this President, but also to celebrate his great life and the big piece of this life that he gave to our Nation. I will never forget when I was first running for Congress, I was practicing law on behalf of a barbershop on the waterfront in San Diego. My dad came in and said, you can be a Member of Congress. He said, Ronald Reagan is running. He is going to run on a platform of national defense and jobs, and in San Diego that is the same thing. I said, what do I need to start running? He said, we need one thing; you need a picture with Ronald Reagan, and we are going to go up and get it, and we went up and got it in L.A. That launched my foray into politics. So many of us won that year who had no chance of winning because we were riding along with a guy named Ronald Reagan.
Let us take a message and a lesson from this great American and proceed ahead with optimism and with dedication to the idea that you get peace through strength. That was a trademark of Ronald Reagan's foreign policy. I think we are following it with this President. I think we need to stay the course and stay steady.
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Sam, you were a cute kid. What happened to you? ;o)
And like his old Friend, Duncan Hunter is inspirational in his honesty, his succinctness, his solutions, his constant battle in Congress for the preservation of his beloved country. God’s speed, Duncan Hunter!
I have to agree. Some of the old Gipper rubbed off on him. He’s one part Reagan, one part TR, and one part Patton.
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