QUOTE OF THE DAY
President Bush Meets with National Governors Association
State Dining Room
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I'm supposed to stall, to wait for the press corps. (Laughter.) Chairman, thanks. Let me see your book there, will you? Mr. Vice Chairman, thank you, sir. Hope you enjoyed last night.
GOVERNOR BLUNT: It was great.
THE PRESIDENT: It was great, yes. It was fun. (Applause.) I am proud to announce to you that Janet Creighton is running the Intergovernmental Affairs Office for us. She looks forward to working with you. I look forward to hearing from you. There's a lot we can do to -- for the next 10 months to work together. I like to tell people I'm going to finish strong, and I want to work with you as I do so.
We share a responsibility to protect our country. I get briefed every morning about threats we face, and they're real. And therefore the question is, what do you do about them? In my judgment, we have got to give the professionals who work hard to protect us all the tools they need. To put it bluntly, if the enemy is calling to America, we really need to know what they're saying. And we need to know what they're thinking. And we need to know who they're talking to.
This is a different kind of struggle than we've ever faced before. It's essential that we understand the mentality of these killers. And so therefore we worked with Congress to protect -- pass the Protect America Act, which everybody knows has expired. And I want to share with you the core of the problem. And the problem is, should companies who are believed to have helped us -- after 9/11 until today -- get information necessary to protect the country, be sued. And my answer is, absolutely not; they shouldn't be sued, for a couple of reasons.
One, it's not fair. Our government told them that their participation was necessary, and it was -- and still is -- and that what we had asked them to do was legal. And now they're getting sued for billions of dollars -- and it's not fair, and it will create doubt amongst private sector folks who we need to help protect us.
Secondly, such lawsuits would require disclosure of information, which will make it harder to protect the country. You can imagine when people start defending themselves, they're going to be asked all kinds of questions about tactics used. Makes absolutely no sense to give the enemy more knowledge about what the United States is doing to protect the American people.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
President Bush, right, kisses his wife first lady Laura Bush, left, after speaking at the 2008 Republican Governors Association gala at the National Building Museum, Monday, Feb. 25, 2008, in Washington.
