Posted on 09/24/2003 2:24:37 PM PDT by Pyro7480
Thank you very much.
Since September 11, 2001 - more than two years ago now - no major terrorist attack has occurred within our borders.
We have liberated two nations and 50 million people once enslaved by tyrannical regimes
Iraq, once a source of oppression, is now a source of hope.
A fledgling democracy is blooming there. A free economy, too.
Schools and hospitals are open, dissidents have been released, families have been reunited, and for the first time in decades, Iraqi citizens have reason to be optimistic
In Afghanistan, a generation of children is being raised in liberty, an unimaginable possibility two years ago.
Political and economic freedoms are gaining strength there by the day.
These are the results of the war on terror - direct results of the president's bold leadership.
These remarkable successes for the people of the United States, Iraq, and Afghanistan- and for all people who embrace the cause of liberty - would not have been possible without the Bush Doctrine.
Yet, in recent months, leaders of the Democrat Party, leaders who once stood shoulder to shoulder with the commander-in-chief, ahve parted ways - not only with the President, but with the very ideas behind the war on terror.
Because of that shift, the differences between the two major parties are now starker thatn they've been in at least a generation.
The Republican Party, the governing party of this nation, has made its position clear since September 11th.
Our position is that the moment the first plance hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, the United States entered a state of war that demanded an immediate and overwhelming military response.
President Bush dreq aline in the rubble at Ground Zero that day, and told the world that freedom and terrorism cannot coexist: "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."
The core leadership of the Democrat Party has no such policy for fighting and winning this war.
More precisely, they do not believe we are even at war, and therefore do not believe we should be fighting one in the first place.
In the face of two of the swiftest, most humane, and most successful military campaigns in human history, they call our president "a miserable failure."
In the face of grave and gathering threats from hostile regimes in North Korea, Iran, and Syria, they suggest the war on terror is a political contrivance.
And in the face if 50 million free and enthusiastic Iraqis and Afghanis, they suggest the war is a fraud perpetrated against the American people.
These charges represent something much different from the natural rhetoric of the campaign trail.
These accusations depart, in kind and degree, from what we should expect from candidates in the heat of debate.
Even if we acknowledge that every presidential primary forces the parties to court their ideological bases, national Democrat leaders this year have crossed a line, and now fully embrace their hostile, isolationist extreme.
In recent months, the Blame-America-First hate-speech of the American left has infected the Democrat Party's national leadership to a dangerous degree.
Listening to Democrat leaders in Congress and their presidential primary field, one comes away with one impression.
They just don't believe the United States is at war.
They seem not to recognize our nation is genuinely threatened by a real and dangerous evil, the destruction of which must be the single unifying purpose of our nation.
Rather than a challenge of historic importance, too many Democrats treat the war on terror like a political nuisance.
There was a time when Democrats like John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt spoke with moral clarity about evil in the world, and the responsibility of the United States to fight that evil with all of the strength of a great and mighty nation.
Today that kind of moral clarity may be voiced around the dinner table by millions of loyal Democrats, but it would be booed at their presidential debates.
Rather than confronting this ugliness - this consuming anger translated into a reckless political agenda - too many leading Democrats have walked away from the legacy of FDR and JFK: a legacy millions of Democrat voters still support.
Students of political histoy will not the similarities to the Cold War debates of the 1960s, when the Democrats rejected that legacy and lurched their party into a pessimistic morass of self-loathing appeasement.
In the Republican Party, we've fought similar battles to preserve our core principles.
In the 1950s, we refused to allow the John Birch Society to define conservatism, and in the 1990s, we resolved to maintain our Reaganite positions on the importance of both projecting American military power across the globe and maintaining open international trade and free markets.
But now, Democrats want to return to the weak and indecisive foreign policy their Cold War past.
John Kerry says, "What we really is regime change in Washington."
Bob Graham suggests the president's actions in Iraq might warrant impeachment proceedings.
Nancy Pelosi says of the Iraqi liberation: "We could have brought down that statue for a lot less."
Howard Dean questions whether the liberated Iraqi people are really better off now than under Saddam Hussein.
Last week, the man who was supposed to bring foreign policy gravitas to the Democrat primary revealed he has absolutely no idea what he believes about the most important foreign policy issue of this generation.
And most recently, Ted Kennedy unleashed the most mean-spirited and irresponsible hate-speech yet, saying the war in Iraq was a "fraud," cooked up "in Texas" for the political benefit of the president's allies.
This leftward lurch has not been lost on rank-and-file Democrats either.
Democrat Senator Zell Miller has been outspoken in his concerns about the extremism in his party's Washington leadership.
And freshman Democrat Jim Marshall of Georgia came back from liberated Iraq ebullient with praise about the mission's principles and success, in direct contradiction of the DNC's talking points.
The message is clear: national Democrat leaders may have lost touch, but their rank-and-file members and voters haven't.
Some say Republicans should be overjoyed by the Democrats' repeat of history, but I do not.
The United States is at war and we wan the nation - and its political parties - united behind our common mission to defeat global terror.
Our enemy is not each other. It's the terrorists.[APPLAUSE]
We can never forget that there are not means of destruction the terrorists won't hesitate to loose on our people.
Just try for a moment to imagine if, on 9/11, their weaposn hadn't been planes, but nuclear missiles.
We would not have mourned thousands, but millions.
Since that terrible day, everyone has rightly expressed their support for the war on terror.
But too many on the left have proven themselves unwilling to do the things it will take to win that war.
It's all the same indivisible war on terror.
You cannot separate homeland security from national security: they are one in the same comprehensive plan - embodied in the Bush Doctrine - to rid the world of terrorism and ensure the survival of the civilized world.
Criticism is one thing, but too many Democrats have voiced their opposition to someone without proposing their support for something.
This week, they'll have one more chance to step up.
As you know, President Bush has sent an $87 billion supplemental war budget to Congress to pay for ongoing military and democracy-building operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The upcoming Congressional hearings on the request will finally put the seriousness of the president's critics in the spotlight. Thank you very much.
Since September 11, 2001 - more than two years ago now - no major terrorist attack has occurred within our borders.
We have liberated two nations and 50 million people once enslaved by tyrannical regimes
Iraq, once a source of oppression, is now a source of hope.
A fledgling democracy is blooming there. A free economy, too.
Schools and hospitals are open, dissidents have been released, families have been reunited, and for the first time in decades, Iraqi citizens have reason to be optimistic
In Afghanistan, a generation of children is being raised in liberty, an unimaginable possibility two years ago.
Political and economic freedoms are gaining strength there by the day.
These are the results of the war on terror - direct results of the president's bold leadership.
These remarkable successes for the people of the United States, Iraq, and Afghanistan- and for all people who embrace the cause of liberty - would not have been possible without the Bush Doctrine.
Yet, in recent months, leaders of the Democrat Party, leaders who once stood shoulder to shoulder with the commander-in-chief, ahve parted ways - not only with the President, but with the very ideas behind the war on terror.
Because of that shift, the differences between the two major parties are now starker thatn they've been in at least a generation.
The Republican Party, the governing party of this nation, has made its position clear since September 11th.
Our position is that the moment the first plance hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, the United States entered a state of war that demanded an immediate and overwhelming military response.
President Bush dreq aline in the rubble at Ground Zero that day, and told the world that freedom and terrorism cannot coexist: "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."
The core leadership of the Democrat Party has no such policy for fighting and winning this war.
More precisely, they do not believe we are even at war, and therefore do not believe we should be fighting one in the first place.
In the face of two of the swiftest, most humane, and most successful military campaigns in human history, they call our president "a miserable failure."
In the face of grave and gathering threats from hostile regimes in North Korea, Iran, and Syria, they suggest the war on terror is a political contrivance.
And in the face if 50 million free and enthusiastic Iraqis and Afghanis, they suggest the war is a fraud perpetrated against the American people.
These charges represent something much different from the natural rhetoric of the campaign trail.
These accusations depart, in kind and degree, from what we should expect from candidates in the heat of debate.
Even if we acknowledge that every presidential primary forces the parties to court their ideological bases, national Democrat leaders this year have crossed a line, and now fully embrace their hostile, isolationist extreme.
In recent months, the Blame-America-First hate-speech of the American left has infected the Democrat Party's national leadership to a dangerous degree.
Listening to Democrat leaders in Congress and their presidential primary field, one comes away with one impression.
They just don't believe the United States is at war.
They seem not to recognize our nation is genuinely threatened by a real and dangerous evil, the destruction of which must be the single unifying purpose of our nation.
Rather than a challenge of historic importance, too many Democrats treat the war on terror like a political nuisance.
There was a time when Democrats like John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt spoke with moral clarity about evil in the world, and the responsibility of the United States to fight that evil with all of the strength of a great and mighty nation.
Today that kind of moral clarity may be voiced around the dinner table by millions of loyal Democrats, but it would be booed at their presidential debates.
Rather than confronting this ugliness - this consuming anger translated into a reckless political agenda - too many leading Democrats have walked away from the legacy of FDR and JFK: a legacy millions of Democrat voters still support.
Students of political histoy will not the similarities to the Cold War debates of the 1960s, when the Democrats rejected that legacy and lurched their party into a pessimistic morass of self-loathing appeasement.
In the Republican Party, we've fought similar battles to preserve our core principles.
In the 1950s, we refused to allow the John Birch Society to define conservatism, and in the 1990s, we resolved to maintain our Reaganite positions on the importance of both projecting American military power across the globe and maintaining open international trade and free markets.
But now, Democrats want to return to the weak and indecisive foreign policy their Cold War past.
John Kerry says, "What we really is regime change in Washington."
Bob Graham suggests the president's actions in Iraq might warrant impeachment proceedings.
Nancy Pelosi says of the Iraqi liberation: "We could have brought down that statue for a lot less."
Howard Dean questions whether the liberated Iraqi people are really better off now than under Saddam Hussein.
Last week, the man who was supposed to bring foreign policy gravitas to the Democrat primary revealed he has absolutely no idea what he believes about the most important foreign policy issue of this generation.
And most recently, Ted Kennedy unleashed the most mean-spirited and irresponsible hate-speech yet, saying the war in Iraq was a "fraud," cooked up "in Texas" for the political benefit of the president's allies.
This leftward lurch has not been lost on rank-and-file Democrats either.
Democrat Senator Zell Miller has been outspoken in his concerns about the extremism in his party's Washington leadership.
And freshman Democrat Jim Marshall of Georgia came back from liberated Iraq ebullient with praise about the mission's principles and success, in direct contradiction of the DNC's talking points.
The message is clear: national Democrat leaders may have lost touch, but their rank-and-file members and voters haven't.
Some say Republicans should be overjoyed by the Democrats' repeat of history, but I do not.
The United States is at war and we wan the nation - and its political parties - united behind our common mission to defeat global terror.
Our enemy is not each other. It's the terrorists.[APPLAUSE]
We can never forget that there are not means of destruction the terrorists won't hesitate to loose on our people.
Just try for a moment to imagine if, on 9/11, their weaposn hadn't been planes, but nuclear missiles.
We would not have mourned thousands, but millions.
Since that terrible day, everyone has rightly expressed their support for the war on terror.
But too many on the left have proven themselves unwilling to do the things it will take to win that war.
It's all the same indivisible war on terror.
You cannot separate homeland security from national security: they are one in the same comprehensive plan - embodied in the Bush Doctrine - to rid the world of terrorism and ensure the survival of the civilized world.
Criticism is one thing, but too many Democrats have voiced their opposition to someone without proposing their support for something.
This week, they'll have one more chance to step up.
As you know, President Bush has sent an $87 billion supplemental war budget to Congress to pay for ongoing military and democracy-building operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the hearings, the president's advisors may be the ones at the witness tables, but the president's critics will be the ones with the questions to answer. Thank you very much.
Since September 11, 2001 - more than two years ago now - no major terrorist attack has occurred within our borders.
We have liberated two nations and 50 million people once enslaved by tyrannical regimes
Iraq, once a source of oppression, is now a source of hope.
A fledgling democracy is blooming there. A free economy, too.
Schools and hospitals are open, dissidents have been released, families have been reunited, and for the first time in decades, Iraqi citizens have reason to be optimistic
In Afghanistan, a generation of children is being raised in liberty, an unimaginable possibility two years ago.
Political and economic freedoms are gaining strength there by the day.
These are the results of the war on terror - direct results of the president's bold leadership.
These remarkable successes for the people of the United States, Iraq, and Afghanistan- and for all people who embrace the cause of liberty - would not have been possible without the Bush Doctrine.
Yet, in recent months, leaders of the Democrat Party, leaders who once stood shoulder to shoulder with the commander-in-chief, ahve parted ways - not only with the President, but with the very ideas behind the war on terror.
Because of that shift, the differences between the two major parties are now starker thatn they've been in at least a generation.
The Republican Party, the governing party of this nation, has made its position clear since September 11th.
Our position is that the moment the first plance hit the north tower of the World Trade Center, the United States entered a state of war that demanded an immediate and overwhelming military response.
President Bush dreq aline in the rubble at Ground Zero that day, and told the world that freedom and terrorism cannot coexist: "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."
The core leadership of the Democrat Party has no such policy for fighting and winning this war.
More precisely, they do not believe we are even at war, and therefore do not believe we should be fighting one in the first place.
In the face of two of the swiftest, most humane, and most successful military campaigns in human history, they call our president "a miserable failure."
In the face of grave and gathering threats from hostile regimes in North Korea, Iran, and Syria, they suggest the war on terror is a political contrivance.
And in the face if 50 million free and enthusiastic Iraqis and Afghanis, they suggest the war is a fraud perpetrated against the American people.
These charges represent something much different from the natural rhetoric of the campaign trail.
These accusations depart, in kind and degree, from what we should expect from candidates in the heat of debate.
Even if we acknowledge that every presidential primary forces the parties to court their ideological bases, national Democrat leaders this year have crossed a line, and now fully embrace their hostile, isolationist extreme.
In recent months, the Blame-America-First hate-speech of the American left has infected the Democrat Party's national leadership to a dangerous degree.
Listening to Democrat leaders in Congress and their presidential primary field, one comes away with one impression.
They just don't believe the United States is at war.
They seem not to recognize our nation is genuinely threatened by a real and dangerous evil, the destruction of which must be the single unifying purpose of our nation.
Rather than a challenge of historic importance, too many Democrats treat the war on terror like a political nuisance.
There was a time when Democrats like John F. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt spoke with moral clarity about evil in the world, and the responsibility of the United States to fight that evil with all of the strength of a great and mighty nation.
Today that kind of moral clarity may be voiced around the dinner table by millions of loyal Democrats, but it would be booed at their presidential debates.
Rather than confronting this ugliness - this consuming anger translated into a reckless political agenda - too many leading Democrats have walked away from the legacy of FDR and JFK: a legacy millions of Democrat voters still support.
Students of political histoy will not the similarities to the Cold War debates of the 1960s, when the Democrats rejected that legacy and lurched their party into a pessimistic morass of self-loathing appeasement.
In the Republican Party, we've fought similar battles to preserve our core principles.
In the 1950s, we refused to allow the John Birch Society to define conservatism, and in the 1990s, we resolved to maintain our Reaganite positions on the importance of both projecting American military power across the globe and maintaining open international trade and free markets.
But now, Democrats want to return to the weak and indecisive foreign policy their Cold War past.
John Kerry says, "What we really is regime change in Washington."
Bob Graham suggests the president's actions in Iraq might warrant impeachment proceedings.
Nancy Pelosi says of the Iraqi liberation: "We could have brought down that statue for a lot less."
Howard Dean questions whether the liberated Iraqi people are really better off now than under Saddam Hussein.
Last week, the man who was supposed to bring foreign policy gravitas to the Democrat primary revealed he has absolutely no idea what he believes about the most important foreign policy issue of this generation.
And most recently, Ted Kennedy unleashed the most mean-spirited and irresponsible hate-speech yet, saying the war in Iraq was a "fraud," cooked up "in Texas" for the political benefit of the president's allies.
This leftward lurch has not been lost on rank-and-file Democrats either.
Democrat Senator Zell Miller has been outspoken in his concerns about the extremism in his party's Washington leadership.
And freshman Democrat Jim Marshall of Georgia came back from liberated Iraq ebullient with praise about the mission's principles and success, in direct contradiction of the DNC's talking points.
The message is clear: national Democrat leaders may have lost touch, but their rank-and-file members and voters haven't.
Some say Republicans should be overjoyed by the Democrats' repeat of history, but I do not.
The United States is at war and we wan the nation - and its political parties - united behind our common mission to defeat global terror.
Our enemy is not each other. It's the terrorists.[APPLAUSE]
We can never forget that there are not means of destruction the terrorists won't hesitate to loose on our people.
Just try for a moment to imagine if, on 9/11, their weaposn hadn't been planes, but nuclear missiles.
We would not have mourned thousands, but millions.
Since that terrible day, everyone has rightly expressed their support for the war on terror.
But too many on the left have proven themselves unwilling to do the things it will take to win that war.
It's all the same indivisible war on terror.
You cannot separate homeland security from national security: they are one in the same comprehensive plan - embodied in the Bush Doctrine - to rid the world of terrorism and ensure the survival of the civilized world.
Criticism is one thing, but too many Democrats have voiced their opposition to someone without proposing their support for something.
This week, they'll have one more chance to step up.
As you know, President Bush has sent an $87 billion supplemental war budget to Congress to pay for ongoing military and democracy-building operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Is America engaged in a major internation war that requires a massive and prolonged response?
If so, mustn't we act BEFORE terrorist threats become imminent?
If so isn't victory more important than getting a green light from Paris and Berlin?
If so, isn't 87 billion dollars - or for that matter 187 -a bargain if it helps prevent another 9/11?
If so, isn't it smarter to fight the war on terror in the streets of Baghdad than the streets of Brooklyn?
And if the Bush doctine - which has been so successful for two years - isn't the policy we need to defeat the terrorists, then what alternative policy do you propose?
These are the real questions.
Many on the left have answered them with seriousness and intelligence.
Even the Washington Post editorial board endorsed military action in Iraq, saying, "Unless unexpected change takes place in Baghdad, the United States should lead a force to remove Saddam Hussein's dictatorship" and "it would be a mistake.. to shrink again from decisive action."
But too many in their leadership have shirked this responsibility.
They have allowed their cause to be bullied by people who believe vandalizing Starbucks represents a legitimate foreign policy agenda.[APPLAUSE]
It's time now, before the presidential primary dominates American politics next year, to get them on the record.
The hearing and vote on the war supplemental will provide the Democrats a forum in which to explain their vision of the war.
We'll have a debate and a vote about principle, with dramatic repercussions for the future.
Our critics can try to change the subject, but the debate will come down to one question.
Are we at war or not?
One choice: one vote.
For the war on terror - in all of its forms and on all its fronts - or against it.
The Democrat leaders must finally decide: are they going to be the party of Franklin Roosevelt's moral clarity, or the party of Ted Kennedy's extremist appeasement?
Of course, there will be - and should be - serious disagreements on the path to victory in the war on terror.
But the national interest will be best served by two parties, each committed in their own way to that victory for the safety and survival of the American people.
Because the American people have already made their choice - as they always have - "with unbounding determination" and " in their righteous might" - to "win through to absolute victory."
And together, united in courage and conviction, we can "bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty."
Thank you, and God bless America. [APPLAUSE]
THE DEMOCRATS SUCK!
The 22nd district of Texas has a gem in Tom Delay. The rest of us should be so lucky. Make 'em pay Delay!
FGS
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