January 6, 2005
ANY OTHER FAVORITES?:
With Michael Gerson leaving the White House speech shop, all of President Bush's major writers from the past five years will haver moved on. What makes this notable is that no presidency has ever been more clearly defined and driven by the words and ideas of the President. The Reagan presidency comes closest, but the recession of the early '80s forced him to retreat on many fronts. The speeches for which we remember him are nearly all devoted to the Soviet Union and National Defense. The only other modern president who's noted for his use of words is JFK, but that all derives from just the one speech: his Inaugural, on January 20, 1961. Mr. Bush on the other hand is today addressing the remaining issues from his very first speeches in 1999 and handling the liberalization of the Middle East exactly as he then suggested he would. At key moments along the way he has addressed specific issues in greater detail or changed his emphasis from one to another, but the broad outlines are remarkably still intact. For all the gallons of ink folks spend analyzing him, it is the singular fact of his presidency that all you have to do is listen to him and he'll tell you exactly what he's doing and why.
Here then are some highlights from the past few years--not all will have been written by Mr. Gerson, of course--in which we should pay attention not just to the eloquence of expression but the consistency of themes:
Duty Of Hope (Indianapolis, Indiana, July 22, 1999)
Everywhere I’ve gone in this campaign – from farms in Iowa to Latino communities in California – I’ve carried one message. Our country must be prosperous. But prosperity must have a purpose. The purpose of prosperity is to make sure the American dream touches every willing heart. The purpose of prosperity is to leave no one out… to leave no one behind.We are a wealthy nation. But we must also be rich in ideals— rich in justice and compassion and family love and moral courage.
I am an economic conservative. I believe we should cut taxes to stimulate economic growth. Yet I know that economic growth is not the solution to every problem. A rising tide lifts many boats – but not all. Many prosper in a bull market – but not everyone. The invisible hand works many miracles. But it cannot touch the human heart.
The American Dream is so vivid – but too many feel: The dream is not meant for me. Children abandoned by fathers. Children captured by addiction and condemned to schools that do not teach and will not change. Young mothers without self-respect or education or the supporting love of a husband. These needs are found everywhere, in cities and suburbs and small towns. But the places where these problems are concentrated – from North Central Philadelphia to South Central Los Angeles – have become the ruins of communities. Places where despair is the easy path, and hope the narrow gate.
For many people, this other society of addiction and abandonment and stolen childhood is a distant land, another world. But it is America. And these are not strangers, they are citizens, Americans, our brothers and sisters.
In their hopes, we find our duties. In their hardship, we must find our calling – to serve others, relying on the goodness of America and the boundless grace of God.
The reality here is simple. Often when a life is broken, it can only be rebuilt by another caring, concerned human being. Someone whose actions say, "I love you, I believe in you, I’m in your corner." This is compassion with a human face and a human voice. It is not an isolated act -- it is a personal relationship. And it works. The mentors in Big Brothers/ Big Sisters – spending only a few hours a week with a child -- cut first-time drug use by 50 percent and violent behavior by a third. The success of this fine program proves the obvious: in solving the problems of our day, there is no substitute for unconditional love and personal contact.
I was struck by the story of a gang initiation in Michigan. A 15-year-old boy was forced to stand and take two minutes of vicious beating from other members without fighting back. At the end, he was required to stand up and embrace his attackers. When asked why he submitted to this torture, he answered, "I knew this was going to hurt really bad, but I felt that if I could take it for just a couple of minutes, I’d be surrounded by people who loved me."
Imagine a young life that empty, so desperately in need of real love. And multiply it by millions. This crisis of the spirit creates an expanding circle of responsibility. Individuals are responsible to love our neighbors as we want to be loved ourselves.
Parents must understand that being a good mom or dad becomes their highest goal in life.
Congregations and community groups must fight for children and neighborhoods, creating what Pope John Paul II calls, "a hospitable society, a welcoming culture."
A president has responsibilities as well. A president can speak without apology for the values that defeat violence and help overcome poverty. A president can speak for abstinence and accountability and the power of faith.
In the past, presidents have declared wars on poverty and promised to create a great society. But these grand gestures and honorable aims were frustrated. They have become a warning, not an example. We found that government can spend money, but it can’t put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives. This is done by churches and synagogues and mosques and charities that warm the cold of life. A quiet river of goodness and kindness that cuts through stone.
Real change in our culture comes from the bottom up, not the top down. It gathers the momentum of a million committed hearts.
So today I want to propose a different role for government. A fresh start. A bold new approach.
In every instance where my administration sees a responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith-based organizations, charities and community groups that have shown their ability to save and change lives. We will make a determined attack on need, by promoting the compassionate acts of others. We will rally the armies of compassion in our communities to fight a very different war against poverty and hopelessness, a daily battle waged house to house and heart by heart.
This will not be the failed compassion of towering, distant bureaucracies. On the contrary, it will be government that serves those who are serving their neighbors. It will be government that directs help to the inspired and the effective. It will be government that both knows its limits, and shows its heart. And it will be government truly by the people and for the people.
We will take this path, first and foremost, because private and religious groups are effective. Because they have clear advantages over government.
Sometimes the idea of compassion is dismissed as soft or sentimental. But those who believe this have not visited these programs. Compassion is not one of the easy virtues.
At InnerChange -- a faith-based program run by Prison Fellowship inside a Texas prison -- inmates are up at 5 am and fill their days with work and study rather than soap operas. At Teen Challenge – a national drug treatment program – one official says, "We have a rule: If you don’t work, you don’t eat." This is demanding love – at times, a severe mercy. These institutions, at their best, treat people as moral individuals, with responsibilities and duties, not as wards or clients or dependents or numbers.
Self-control and character and goal-setting give direction and dignity to all our lives. We must renew these values to restore our country.
Many of these organizations share something else in common: A belief in the transforming power of faith. A belief that no one is finally a failure or a victim, because everyone is the child of a loving and merciful God – a God who counts our tears and lifts our head. The goal of these faith-based groups is not just to provide services, it is to change lives. And lives are changed.
Addicts become examples. Reckless men become loving fathers. Prisoners become spiritual leaders – sometimes more mature and inspiring than many of us can ever hope to be.
In Texas, there is a young man named James Peterson, who’d embezzled his way into a prison term. But when he was offered parole, he turned it down, to finish the InnerChange course, which teaches inmates to rely on faith to transform their lives. As James put it, "There is nothing I want more than to be back in the outside world with my daughter Lucy, [but] I realized that this was an opportunity to … become a living [witness] … for my brothers [in prison] and to the world. I want to stay in prison to complete the transformation [God] has begun in me."
One example, but a miracle that is common. Sometimes our greatest need is not for more laws. It is for more conscience. Sometimes our greatest hope is not found in reform. It is found in redemption.
We should promote these private and faith-based efforts because they work. But we should also promote them because their challenges are often greater than their resources. Sometimes the armies of compassion are outnumbered and outflanked and outgunned. Visit Mission Arlington in Texas on a day they offer free dentistry, and people are often lined up at 3 or 4 in the morning. Or consider that only 3 percent of America’s 13.6 million at-risk children now have mentors. These groups are widespread, but their scale, in some cases, is not sufficient.
It is not enough for conservatives like me to praise these efforts. It is not enough to call for volunteerism. Without more support and resources – both private and public – we are asking them to make bricks without straw.
So today I am announcing a series of proposals. And they are guided by some basic principles.
Resources should be devolved, not just to states, but to charities and neighborhood healers. We will never ask an organization to compromise its core values and spiritual mission to get the help it needs.
We will keep a commitment to pluralism -- not discriminating for or against Methodists or Mormons or Muslims, or good people of no faith at all.
We will ensure that participation in faith-based programs is truly voluntary—that there are secular alternatives.
And we will recognize there are some things the government should be doing – like Medicaid for poor children. Government cannot be replaced by charities – but it can welcome them as partners, not resent them as rivals.
Where do we start? Our nation is so prosperous that we can meet our current priorities and still take on new battles. We will strengthen Social Security and Medicare. We will fortify the military. We will cut taxes in a way that creates high-paying jobs. Yet there is another priority. In my first year in office, we will dedicate about $8 billion – an amount equal to 10 percent of the non-Social Security surplus -- to provide new tax incentives for giving, and to support charities and other private institutions that save and change lives. We will prove, in word and deed, that our prosperity has a purpose.
My administration will act in three broad areas:
First, we will encourage an outpouring of giving in America. Americans are generous with their time and money. But we can foster that generosity even further – creating fertile ground for the growth of charities.
Right now approximately 70 percent of all tax filers cannot claim the charitable tax deduction, because they do not itemize. We will give people who don’t itemize the same treatment and incentive as people who do, rewarding and encouraging giving by everyone in our society, not just the wealthy.
We will provide for charity tax credits – credits which will allow individuals to give a part of what they owe in state taxes directly to private and religious institutions fighting poverty in their own communities. Individuals will choose who conducts this war on poverty – and their support won’t be filtered through layers of government officials.
Second, we will involve the armies of compassion in some specific areas of need, to demonstrate how our new approach will work.
Here is an example. America has tripled its prison population in the last 15 years. That is a necessary and effective role of government – protecting our communities from predators. But it has left a problem – an estimated 1.3 million children who have one or both parents in prison. These are forgotten children – almost six times more likely to go to prison themselves – and they should not be punished for the sins of their fathers. It is not only appropriate, it is urgent, to give grants to ministries and mentoring programs targeting these children and their families for help and support. My administration will start bringing help and hope to these other, innocent victims of crime.
As well, we will encourage and expand the role of charities in after-school programs. Everyone agrees there is a problem in these empty, unsupervised hours after school. But those hours should not only be filled with sports and play, they should include lessons in responsibility and character. So we will invite the Boys and Girls Clubs, the YMCA and local churches and synagogues to be a central part of after-school programs.
We will encourage private and religious charities to be more involved in drug treatment and maternity group homes. We will bring programs like InnerChange to four federal prisons, to test if its early promise is fulfilled. And we will set up a compassion capital fund, to identify good ideas transforming neighborhoods and lives and provide seed money to support them – helping to expand the scale of effective programs.
Third, we will change the laws and regulations that hamper the cooperation of government and private institutions. In 1997, Texas officials tried to close down faith-based drug treatment programs because they didn’t fit the regulations.
When challenged that these programs were effective, one official responded, "We’re not interested in results, we’re interested in complying with the law." We solved that problem in Texas. If I am president, federal workers in every department of my administration will know that we value effectiveness above red tape and regulation.
We will allow private and religious groups to compete to provide services in every federal, state and local social program. We will promote alternative licensing procedures, so effective efforts won’t be buried by regulation. And we will create an advocate position – reporting directly to the president – to ensure that charities are not secularized or slighted.
I visit churches and charities serving their neighbors nearly everywhere I go in this country. And nothing is more exciting or encouraging. Every day they prove that our worst problems are not hopeless or endless. Every day they perform miracles of renewal. Wherever we can, we must expand their role and reach, without changing them or corrupting them. It is the next, bold step of welfare reform.
To take that step, our nation must get beyond two narrow mindsets. The first is that government provides the only real compassion. A belief that what is done by caring people through church and charity is secondary and marginal. Some Washington politicians call these efforts "crumbs of compassion." These aren’t "crumbs" to people whose lives are changed, they are the hope of renewal and salvation. These are not the "crumbs of compassion," they are the bread of life. And they are the strength and soul of America.
There is another destructive mindset: the idea that if government would only get out of our way, all our problems would be solved. An approach with no higher goal, no nobler purpose, than "Leave us alone."
Yet this is not who we are as Americans. We have always found our better selves in sympathy and generosity – both in our lives and in our laws. Americans will never write the epitaph of idealism. It emerges from our nature as a people, with a vision of the common good beyond profit and loss. Our national character shines in our compassion.
We are a nation of rugged individuals. But we are also the country of the second chance – tied together by bonds of friendship and community and solidarity.
We are a nation of high purpose and restless reform – of child labor laws and emancipation and suffrage and civil rights.
We are a nation that defeated fascism, elevated millions of the elderly out of poverty and humbled an evil empire.
I know the reputation of our government has been tainted by scandal and cynicism. But the American government is not the enemy of the American people. At times it is wasteful and grasping. But we must correct it, not disdain it. Government must be carefully limited – but strong and active and respected within those bounds. It must act in the common good – and that good is not common until it is shared by those in need.
In this campaign, I bring a message to my own party. We must apply our conservative and free-market ideas to the job of helping real human beings -- because any ideology, no matter how right in theory, is sterile and empty without that goal. There must be a kindness in our justice. There must be a mercy in our judgment. There must be a love behind our zeal.
This is where my campaign is headed. We will carry a message of hope and renewal to every community in this country. We will tell every American, "The dream is for you." Tell forgotten children in failed schools, "The dream is for you." Tell families, from the barrios of LA to the Rio Grande Valley: "El sueno americano es para ti." Tell men and women in our decaying cities, "The dream is for you." Tell confused young people, starved of ideals, "The dream is for you."
As Americans, this is our creed and our calling. We stumble and splinter when we forget that goal. We unite and prosper when we remember it. No great calling is ever easy, and no work of man is ever perfect. But we can, in our imperfect way, rise now and again to the example of St. Francis – where there is hatred, sowing love; where there is darkness, shedding light; where there is despair, bringing hope.
"A Distinctly American Internationalism" (Governor George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California, November 19, 1999)
In the defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment.But there is more to say, because military power is not the final measure of might. Our realism must make a place for the human spirit.
This spirit, in our time, has caused dictators to fear and empires to fall. And it has left an honor roll of courage and idealism: Scharansky, Havel, Walesa, Mandela. The most powerful force in the world is not a weapon or a nation but a truth: that we are spiritual beings, and that freedom is "the soul’s right to breathe."
In the dark days of 1941 – the low point of our modern epic – there were about a dozen democracies left on the planet. Entering a new century, there are nearly 120. There is a direction in events, a current in our times. "Depend on it," said Edmund Burke. "The lovers of freedom will be free."
America cherishes that freedom, but we do not own it. We value the elegant structures of our own democracy – but realize that, in other societies, the architecture will vary. We propose our principles, we must not impose our culture.
Yet the basic principles of human freedom and dignity are universal. People should be able to say what they think. Worship as they wish. Elect those who govern them. These ideals have proven their power on every continent. In former colonies -- and the nations that ruled them. Among the allies of World War II – and the countries they vanquished. And these ideals are equally valid north of the 38th parallel. They are just as true in the Pearl River Delta. They remain true 90 miles from our shores, on an island prison, ruled by a revolutionary relic.
Some have tried to pose a choice between American ideals and American interests—between who we are and how we act. But the choice is false. America, by decision and destiny, promotes political freedom – and gains the most when democracy advances. America believes in free markets and free trade – and benefits most when markets are opened. America is a peaceful power – and gains the greatest dividend from democratic stability. Precisely because we have no territorial objectives, our gains are not measured in the losses of others. They are counted in the conflicts we avert, the prosperity we share and the peace we extend.
Sometimes this balance takes time to achieve – and requires us to deal with nations that do not share our values. Sometimes the defenders of freedom must show patience as well as resolution. But that patience comes of confidence, not compromise. We believe, with Alexander Hamilton, that the "spirit of commerce" has a tendency to "soften the manners of men." We believe, with George Washington, that "Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." And we firmly believe our nation is on the right side of history – the side of man’s dignity and God’s justice.
Few nations have been given the advantages and opportunities of our own. Few have been more powerful as a country, or more successful as a cause. But there are risks, even for the powerful. "I have many reasons to be optimistic," said Pericles in the golden age of Athens. "Indeed, I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy’s devices."
America’s first temptation is withdrawal – to build a proud tower of protectionism and isolation.
In a world that depends on America to reconcile old rivals and balance ancient ambitions, this is the shortcut to chaos. It is an approach that abandons our allies, and our ideals. The vacuum left by America’s retreat would invite challenges to our power. And the result, in the long run, would be a stagnant America and a savage world.
American foreign policy cannot be founded on fear. Fear that American workers can’t compete. Fear that America will corrupt the world – or be corrupted by it. This fear has no place in the party of Reagan, or in the party of Truman. In times of peril, our nation did not shrink from leadership. At this moment of opportunity, I have no intention of betraying American interests, American obligations and American honor.
America’s second temptation is drift – for our nation to move from crisis to crisis like a cork in a current.
Unless a president sets his own priorities, his priorities will be set by others – by adversaries, or the crisis of the moment, live on CNN. American policy can become random and reactive – untethered to the interests of our country.
America must be involved in the world. But that does not mean our military is the answer to every difficult foreign policy situation – a substitute for strategy. American internationalism should not mean action without vision, activity without priority, and missions without end – an approach that squanders American will and drains American energy.
American foreign policy must be more than the management of crisis. It must have a great and guiding goal: to turn this time of American influence into generations of democratic peace.
his is accomplished by concentrating on enduring national interests. And these are my priorities. An American president should work with our strong democratic allies in Europe and Asia to extend the peace. He should promote a fully democratic Western Hemisphere, bound together by free trade. He should defend America’s interests in the Persian Gulf and advance peace in the Middle East, based upon a secure Israel. He must check the contagious spread of weapons of mass destruction, and the means to deliver them. He must lead toward a world that trades in freedom. And he must pursue all these goals with focus, patience and strength.
I will address these responsibilities as this campaign continues. To each, I bring the same approach: A distinctly American internationalism. Idealism, without illusions. Confidence, without conceit. Realism, in the service of American ideals. [...]
All the aims I’ve described today are important. But they are not imperial. America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused – preferring greatness to power and justice to glory.We are a nation that helped defeat Germany in 1945 – which had launched a war costing 55 million lives. Less than five years later we launched an airlift to save the people of Berlin from starvation and tyranny. And a generation of Germans remember the "raisin bombers" that dropped candy and raisins for children.
We are a nation that defeated Japan – then distributed food, wrote a constitution, encouraged labor unions and gave women the right to vote. Japanese who expected retribution received mercy instead. Over the entrance of one American army camp, there was a banner that read, "Be neat. Be soldierly. Be proud. Behave. Be American."
No one questioned what those words meant: "Be American." They meant we were humble in victory. That we were liberators, not conquerors. And when American soldiers hugged the survivors of death camps, and shared their tears, and welcomed them back from a nightmare world, our country was confirmed in its calling.
The duties of our day are different. But the values of our nation do not change. Let us reject the blinders of isolationism, just as we refuse the crown of empire. Let us not dominate others with our power – or betray them with our indifference. And let us have an American foreign policy that reflects American character. The modesty of true strength. The humility of real greatness.
This is the strong heart of America. And this will be the spirit of my administration.
I believe this kind of foreign policy will inspire our people and restore the bipartisanship so necessary to our peace and security.
Many years ago, Alexander Solzhenitzyn challenged American politicians. "Perhaps," he said, "some of you still feel yourselves just as representatives of your state or party. We do not perceive these differences. We do not look on you as Democrats or Republicans, not as representatives of the East or West Coast or the Midwest…. Upon [you] depends whether the course of world history will tend to tragedy or salvation."
That is still our challenge. And that is still our choice.
Governor George Bush's Acceptance Speech (Republican National Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Thursday, August 3, 2000)
My father was the last president of a great generation. A generation of Americans who stormed beaches, liberated concentration camps and delivered us from evil.
Some never came home.
Those who did put their medals in drawers, went to work, and built on a heroic scale ... highways and universities, suburbs and factories, great cities and grand alliances -- the strong foundations of an American Century.
Now the question comes to the sons and daughters of this achievement...
What is asked of us?
This is a remarkable moment in the life of our nation. Never has the promise of prosperity been so vivid. But times of plenty, like times of crisis, are tests of American character.
Prosperity can be a tool in our hands -- used to build and better our country. Or it can be a drug in our system -- dulling our sense of urgency, of empathy, of duty.
Our opportunities are too great, our lives too short, to waste this moment.
So tonight we vow to our nation ...
We will seize this moment of American promise.
We will use these good times for great goals.
We will confront the hard issues -- threats to our national security, threats to our health and retirement security -- before the challenges of our time become crises for our children.
And we will extend the promise of prosperity to every forgotten corner of this country.
To every man and woman, a chance to succeed. To every child, a chance to learn. To every family, a chance to live with dignity and hope.
For eight years, the Clinton/Gore administration has coasted through prosperity.
And the path of least resistance is always downhill.
But America's way is the rising road.
This nation is daring and decent and ready for change.
Our current president embodied the potential of a generation. So many talents. So much charm. Such great skill. But, in the end, to what end? So much promise, to no great purpose.
Little more than a decade ago, the Cold War thawed and, with the leadership of Presidents Reagan and Bush, that wall came down.
But instead of seizing this moment, the Clinton/Gore administration has squandered it. We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence.
Our military is low on parts, pay and morale.
If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report ... Not ready for duty, sir.
This administration had its moment.
They had their chance. They have not led. We will.
This generation was given the gift of the best education in American history. Yet we do not share that gift with everyone. Seven of ten fourth-graders in our highest poverty schools cannot read a simple children's book.
And still this administration continues on the same old path with the same old programs -- while millions are trapped in schools where violence is common and learning is rare.
This administration had its chance. They have not led. We will.
America has a strong economy and a surplus. We have the public resources and the public will -- even the bipartisan opportunities -- to strengthen Social Security and repair Medicare.
But this administration -- during eight years of increasing need -- did nothing.
They had their moment. They have not led. We will.
Our generation has a chance to reclaim some essential values -- to show we have grown up before we grow old.
But when the moment for leadership came, this administration did not teach our children, it disillusioned them.
They had their chance. They have not led. We will.
And now they come asking for another chance, another shot.
Our answer?
Not this time.
Not this year.
This is not a time for third chances, it is a time for new beginnings. The rising generations of this country have our own appointment with greatness.
It does not rise or fall with the stock market. It cannot be bought with our wealth.
Greatness is found when American character and American courage overcome American challenges. [...]
Tonight, in this hall, we resolve to be, not the party of repose, but the party of reform.
We will write, not footnotes, but chapters in the American story. [...]
ur new economy must never forget the old, unfinished struggle for human dignity.
And here we face a challenge to the very heart and founding premise of our nation.
A couple of years ago, I visited a juvenile jail in Marlin, Texas, and talked with a group of young inmates. They were angry, wary kids. All had committed grownup crimes.
Yet when I looked in their eyes, I realized some of them were still little boys.
Toward the end of conversation, one young man, about 15, raised his hand and asked a haunting question... "What do you think of me?"
He seemed to be asking, like many Americans who struggle ... "Is there hope for me? Do I have a chance?" And, frankly ... "Do you, a white man in a suit, really care what happens to me?"
A small voice, but it speaks for so many. Single moms struggling to feed the kids and pay the rent. Immigrants starting a hard life in a new world. Children without fathers in neighborhoods where gangs seem like friendship, where drugs promise peace, and where sex, sadly, seems like the closest thing to belonging. We are their country, too.
And each of us must share in its promise, or that promise is diminished for all.
If that boy in Marlin believes he is trapped and worthless and hopeless -- if he believes his life has no value, then other lives have no value to him -- and we are ALL diminished.
When these problems aren't confronted, it builds a wall within our nation. On one side are wealth and technology, education and ambition.
On the other side of the wall are poverty and prison, addiction and despair.
And, my fellow Americans, we must tear down that wall.
Big government is not the answer. But the alternative to bureaucracy is not indifference.
It is to put conservative values and conservative ideas into the thick of the fight for justice and opportunity.
This is what I mean by compassionate conservatism. And on this ground we will govern our nation. [...]
Behind every goal I have talked about tonight is a great hope for our country.
A hundred years from now, this must not be remembered as an age rich in possessions and poor in ideals.
Instead, we must usher in an era of responsibility.
My generation tested limits -- and our country, in some ways, is better for it.
Women are now treated more equally. Racial progress has been steady, if still too slow. We are learning to protect the natural world around us. We will continue this progress, and we will not turn back.
At times, we lost our way. But we are coming home.
So many of us held our first child, and saw a better self reflected in her eyes.
And in that family love, many have found the sign and symbol of an even greater love, and have been touched by faith.
We have discovered that who we are is more important than what we have. And we know we must renew our values to restore our country.
This is the vision of America's founders.
They never saw our nation's greatness in rising wealth or advancing armies, but in small, unnumbered acts of caring and courage and self-denial.
Their highest hope, as Robert Frost described it, was "to occupy the land with character."
And that, 13 generations later, is still our goal ... to occupy the land with character.
In a responsibility era, each of us has important tasks -- work that only we can do.
Each of us is responsible ... to love and guide our children, and help a neighbor in need.
Synagogues, churches and mosques are responsible ... not only to worship but to serve.
Corporations are responsible ... to treat their workers fairly, and leave the air and waters clean.
Our nation's leaders are responsible ... to confront problems, not pass them on to others.
And to lead this nation to a responsibility era, a president himself must be responsible.
And so, when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.
I believe the presidency -- the final point of decision in the American government -- was made for great purposes.
It is the office of Lincoln's conscience and Teddy Roosevelt's energy and Harry Truman's integrity and Ronald Reagan's optimism.
For me, gaining this office is not the ambition of a lifetime, but it IS the opportunity of a lifetime.
And I will make the most of it. I believe great decisions are made with care, made with conviction, not made with polls.
I do not need to take your pulse before I know my own mind. I do not reinvent myself at every turn. I am not running in borrowed clothes. When I act, you will know my reasons ...When I speak, you will know my heart.
I believe in tolerance, not in spite of my faith, but because of it.
I believe in a God who calls us, not to judge our neighbors, but to love them.
I believe in grace, because I have seen it ... In peace, because I have felt it ... In forgiveness, because I have needed it.
I believe true leadership is a process of addition, not an act of division. I will not attack a part of this country, because I want to lead the whole of it.
And I believe this will be a tough race, down to the wire.
Their war room is up and running ... but we are ready. Their attacks will be relentless ... but they will be answered. We are facing something familiar, but they are facing something new.
We are now the party of ideas and innovation ... The party of idealism and inclusion.
The party of a simple and powerful hope ...
My fellow citizens, we can begin again. After all of the shouting, and all of the scandal. After all of the bitterness and broken faith. We can begin again.
The wait has been long, but it won't be long now.
A prosperous nation is ready to renew its purpose and unite behind great goals ... and it won't be long now.
Our nation must renew the hopes of that boy I talked with in jail, and so many like him... and it won't be long now.
Our country is ready for high standards and new leaders ... and it won't be long now.
An era of tarnished ideals is giving way to a responsibility era ... and it won't be long now.
I know how serious the task is before me.
I know the presidency is an office that turns pride into prayer.
But I am eager to start on the work ahead.
And I believe America is ready for a new beginning.
My friend, the artist Tom Lea of El Paso, captured the way I feel about our great land.
He and his wife, he said, "live on the east side of the mountain ...
It is the sunrise side, not the sunset side.
It is the side to see the day that is coming ... not the side to see the day that is gone."
Americans live on the sunrise side of mountain.
The night is passing.
And we are ready for the day to come.
Thank you. And God bless you.
We have a place, all of us, in a long story--a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.It is the American story--a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.
The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant person was ever born.
Americans are called to enact this promise in our lives and in our laws. And though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes delayed, we must follow no other course.
Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations.
Commencement Address of George W. Bush (Yale University, May 21, 2001)
This is my first time back here in quite a while. I’m sure that each of you will make your own journey back at least a few times in your life. If you’re like me, you won’t remember everything you did here. That can be a good thing. But there will be some people, and some moments, you will never forget.Take, for example, my old classmate, Dick Brodhead, the accomplished dean of this great university. I remember him as a young scholar, a bright lad, a hard worker. We both put a lot of time in at the Sterling Library, in the reading room, where they have those big leather couches. We had a mutual understanding–Dick wouldn’t read aloud, and I wouldn’t snore.
Our course selections were different, as we followed our own path to academic discovery. Dick was an English major, and loved the classics. I loved history, and pursued a diversified course of study. I like to think of it as the academic road less traveled.
For example, I took a class that studied Japanese Haiku. Haiku, for the uninitiated, is a 15th century form of poetry, each poem having 17 syllables. Haiku is fully understood only by the Zen masters. As I recall, one of my academic advisers was worried about my selection of such a specialized course. He said I should focus on English. I still hear that quite often. But my critics don’t realize I don’t make verbal gaffes. I’m speaking in the perfect forms and rhythms of ancient Haiku.
I did take English here, and I took a class called “The History and Practice of American Oratory,” taught by Rollin G. Osterweis. And, President Levin, I want to give credit where credit is due. I want the entire world to know this–everything I know about the spoken word, I learned right here at Yale.
As a student, I tried to keep a low profile. It worked. Last year the New York Times interviewed John Morton Blum because the record showed I had taken one of his courses. Casting his mind’s eye over the parade of young faces down through the years, Professor Blum said, and I quote, “I don’t have the foggiest recollection of him.”
But I remember Professor Blum. And I still recall his dedication and high standards of learning. In my time there were many great professors at Yale. And there still are. They’re the ones who keep Yale going after the commencements, after we have all gone our separate ways. I’m not sure I remembered to thank them the last time I was here, but now that I have a second chance, I thank the professors of Yale University.
That’s how I’ve come to feel about the Yale experience– grateful. I studied hard, I played hard, and I made a lot of lifelong friends. What stays with you from college is the part of your education you hardly ever notice at the time. It’s the expectations and examples around you, the ideals you believe in, and the friends you make.
In my time, they spoke of the “Yale man.” I was really never sure what that was. But I do think that I’m a better man because of Yale. All universities, at their best, teach that degrees and honors are far from the full measure of life. Nor is that measure taken in wealth or in titles. What matters most are the standards you live by, the consideration you show others, and the way you use the gifts you are given.
Now you leave Yale behind, carrying the written proof of your success here, at a college older than America. When I left here, I didn’t have much in the way of a life plan. I knew some people who thought they did. But it turned out that we were all in for ups and downs, most of them unexpected. Life takes its own turns, makes its own demands, writes its own story. And along the way, we start to realize we are not the author.
We begin to understand that life is ours to live, but not to waste, and that the greatest rewards are found in the commitments we make with our whole hearts–to the people we love and to the causes that earn our sacrifice. I hope that each of you will know these rewards. I hope you will find them in your own way and your own time.
For some, that might mean some time in public service. And if you hear that calling, I hope you answer. Each of you has unique gifts and you were given them for a reason. Use them and share them. Public service is one way–an honorable way–to mark your life with meaning.
Today I visit not only my alma mater, but the city of my birth. My life began just a few blocks from here, but I was raised in West Texas. From there, Yale always seemed a world away, maybe a part of my future. Now it’s part of my past, and Yale for me is a source of great pride.
I hope that there will come a time for you to return to Yale to say that, and feel as I do today. And I hope you won’t wait as long. Congratulations and God bless.
Remarks by the President on Stem Cell Research (The Bush Ranch, Crawford, Texas, 8/09/01)
The United States has a long and proud record of leading the world toward advances in science and medicine that improve human life. And the United States has a long and proud record of upholding the highest standards of ethics as we expand the limits of science and knowledge. Research on embryonic stem cells raises profound ethical questions, because extracting the stem cell destroys the embryo, and thus destroys its potential for life. Like a snowflake, each of these embryos is unique, with the unique genetic potential of an individual human being. [...]At its core, this issue forces us to confront fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science. It lies at a difficult moral intersection, juxtaposing the need to protect life in all its phases with the prospect of saving and improving life in all its stages.
As the discoveries of modern science create tremendous hope, they also lay vast ethical mine fields. As the genius of science extends the horizons of what we can do, we increasingly confront complex questions about what we should do. We have arrived at that brave new world that seemed so distant in 1932, when Aldous Huxley wrote about human beings created in test tubes in what he called a "hatchery."
In recent weeks, we learned that scientists have created human embryos in test tubes solely to experiment on them. This is deeply troubling, and a warning sign that should prompt all of us to think through these issues very carefully.
Embryonic stem cell research is at the leading edge of a series of moral hazards. The initial stem cell researcher was at first reluctant to begin his research, fearing it might be used for human cloning. Scientists have already cloned a sheep. Researchers are telling us the next step could be to clone human beings to create individual designer stem cells, essentially to grow another you, to be available in case you need another heart or lung or liver.
I strongly oppose human cloning, as do most Americans. We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts, or creating life for our convenience. And while we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means.
My position on these issues is shaped by deeply held beliefs. I'm a strong supporter of science and technology, and believe they have the potential for incredible good -- to improve lives, to save life, to conquer disease. Research offers hope that millions of our loved ones may be cured of a disease and rid of their suffering. I have friends whose children suffer from juvenile diabetes. Nancy Reagan has written me about President Reagan's struggle with Alzheimer's. My own family has confronted the tragedy of childhood leukemia. And, like all Americans, I have great hope for cures.
I also believe human life is a sacred gift from our Creator. I worry about a culture that devalues life, and believe as your President I have an important obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world.
President's Remarks at National Day of Prayer and Remembrance (The National Cathedral , Washington, D.C., 9/14/01)
We are here in the middle hour of our grief. So many have suffered so great a loss, and today we express our nation's sorrow. We come before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who love them.On Tuesday, our country was attacked with deliberate and massive cruelty. We have seen the images of fire and ashes, and bent steel.
Now come the names, the list of casualties we are only beginning to read. They are the names of men and women who began their day at a desk or in an airport, busy with life. They are the names of people who faced death, and in their last moments called home to say, be brave, and I love you.
They are the names of passengers who defied their murderers, and prevented the murder of others on the ground. They are the names of men and women who wore the uniform of the United States, and died at their posts.
They are the names of rescuers, the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help others. We will read all these names. We will linger over them, and learn their stories, and many Americans will weep.
To the children and parents and spouses and families and friends of the lost, we offer the deepest sympathy of the nation. And I assure you, you are not alone.
Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.
War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing.
Our purpose as a nation is firm. Yet our wounds as a people are recent and unhealed, and lead us to pray. In many of our prayers this week, there is a searching, and an honesty. At St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York on Tuesday, a woman said, "I prayed to God to give us a sign that He is still here." Others have prayed for the same, searching hospital to hospital, carrying pictures of those still missing.
God's signs are not always the ones we look for. We learn in tragedy that his purposes are not always our own. Yet the prayers of private suffering, whether in our homes or in this great cathedral, are known and heard, and understood.
There are prayers that help us last through the day, or endure the night. There are prayers of friends and strangers, that give us strength for the journey. And there are prayers that yield our will to a will greater than our own.
This world He created is of moral design. Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn.
It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded, and the world has seen, that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave. We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion; in long lines of blood donors; in thousands of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible.
And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down sixty-eight floors to safety. A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burn victims.
In these acts, and in many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another, and an abiding love for our country. Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called the warm courage of national unity. This is a unity of every faith, and every background.
It has joined together political parties in both houses of Congress. It is evident in services of prayer and candlelight vigils, and American flags, which are displayed in pride, and wave in defiance.
Our unity is a kinship of grief, and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the world.
America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for. But we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America, because we are freedom's home and defender. And the commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time.
On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch over our nation, and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to come.
As we have been assured, neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, can separate us from God's love. May He bless the souls of the departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our country.
Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People (United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., 9/20/01)
Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done. [...]
I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. (Applause.) The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. (Applause.)Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. (Applause.)
Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.
They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.
These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us, because we stand in their way.
We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.
President's Remarks at National Prayer Breakfast (Washington Hilton Hotel, Washington, D.C., 2/07/02)
Every religion is welcomed in our country; all are practiced here. Many of our good citizens profess no religion at all. Our country has never had an official faith. Yet we have all been witnesses these past 21 weeks to the power of faith to see us through the hurt and loss that has come to our country.Faith gives the assurance that our lives and our history have a moral design. As individuals, we know that suffering is temporary, and hope is eternal. As a nation, we know that the ruthless will not inherit the Earth. Faith teaches humility, and with it, tolerance. Once we have recognized God's image in ourselves, we must recognize it in every human being.
Respect for the dignity of others can be found outside of religion, just as intolerance is sometimes found within it. Yet for millions of Americans, the practice of tolerance is a command of faith. When our country was attacked, Americans did not respond with bigotry. People from other countries and cultures have been treated with respect. And this is one victory in the war against terror.
At the same time, faith shows us the reality of good, and the reality of evil. Some acts and choices in this world have eternal consequences. It is always, and everywhere, wrong to target and kill the innocent. It is always, and everywhere, wrong to be cruel and hateful, to enslave and oppress. It is always, and everywhere, right to be kind and just, to protect the lives of others, and to lay down your life for a friend. [...]
The promise of faith is not the absence of suffering, it is the presence of grace. And at ever step we are secure in knowing that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope -- and hope does not disappoint.
It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself.
In the situation the Palestinian people will grow more and more miserable. My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.
I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.
And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.
As new Palestinian institutions and new leaders emerge, demonstrating real performance on security and reform, I expect Israel to respond and work toward a final status agreement. With intensive effort by all, this agreement could be reached within three years from now. And I and my country will actively lead toward that goal.
I can understand the deep anger and anguish of the Israeli people. You've lived too long with fear and funerals, having to avoid markets and public transportation, and forced to put armed guards in kindergarten classrooms. The Palestinian Authority has rejected your offer at hand, and trafficked with terrorists. You have a right to a normal life; you have a right to security; and I deeply believe that you need a reformed, responsible Palestinian partner to achieve that security.
I can understand the deep anger and despair of the Palestinian people. For decades you've been treated as pawns in the Middle East conflict. Your interests have been held hostage to a comprehensive peace agreement that never seems to come, as your lives get worse year by year. You deserve democracy and the rule of law. You deserve an open society and a thriving economy. You deserve a life of hope for your children. An end to occupation and a peaceful democratic Palestinian state may seem distant, but America and our partners throughout the world stand ready to help, help you make them possible as soon as possible.
If liberty can blossom in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions of men and women around the globe who are equally weary of poverty and oppression, equally entitled to the benefits of democratic government.
I have a hope for the people of Muslim countries. Your commitments to morality, and learning, and tolerance led to great historical achievements. And those values are alive in the Islamic world today. You have a rich culture, and you share the aspirations of men and women in every culture. Prosperity and freedom and dignity are not just American hopes, or Western hopes. They are universal, human hopes. And even in the violence and turmoil of the Middle East, America believes those hopes have the power to transform lives and nations.
This moment is both an opportunity and a test for all parties in the Middle East: an opportunity to lay the foundations for future peace; a test to show who is serious about peace and who is not. The choice here is stark and simple. The Bible says, "I have set before you life and death; therefore, choose life." The time has arrived for everyone in this conflict to choose peace, and hope, and life.
President's Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly (New York, New York, 9/12/02)
The United Nations was born in the hope that survived a world war -- the hope of a world moving toward justice, escaping old patterns of conflict and fear. The founding members resolved that the peace of the world must never again be destroyed by the will and wickedness of any man. We created the United Nations Security Council, so that, unlike the League of Nations, our deliberations would be more than talk, our resolutions would be more than wishes. After generations of deceitful dictators and broken treaties and squandered lives, we dedicated ourselves to standards of human dignity shared by all, and to a system of security defended by all.
Today, these standards, and this security, are challenged. Our commitment to human dignity is challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease. The suffering is great, and our responsibilities are clear. The United States is joining with the world to supply aid where it reaches people and lifts up lives, to extend trade and the prosperity it brings, and to bring medical care where it is desperately needed.
As a symbol of our commitment to human dignity, the United States will return to UNESCO. (Applause.) This organization has been reformed and America will participate fully in its mission to advance human rights and tolerance and learning.
Our common security is challenged by regional conflicts -- ethnic and religious strife that is ancient, but not inevitable. In the Middle East, there can be no peace for either side without freedom for both sides. America stands committed to an independent and democratic Palestine, living side by side with Israel in peace and security. Like all other people, Palestinians deserve a government that serves their interests and listens to their voices. My nation will continue to encourage all parties to step up to their responsibilities as we seek a just and comprehensive settlement to the conflict.
Above all, our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions. In the attacks on America a year ago, we saw the destructive intentions of our enemies. This threat hides within many nations, including my own. In cells and camps, terrorists are plotting further destruction, and building new bases for their war against civilization. And our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.
In one place -- in one regime -- we find all these dangers, in their most lethal and aggressive forms, exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront.
Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped -- by the might of
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 6, 2005 9:39 AM