[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H8516-H8522]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        DUTY, HONOR, AND COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, as I begin my remarks this evening, I know 
some Members may have to leave the floor. Some may have other business. 
But there are three words that I ask Members when they leave this 
evening to remember: duty, honor, and country. Those words obviously 
come from the speech given in 1962 by General MacArthur: duty, honor, 
country.
  Our country right now is not in a constitutional crisis. Our country 
right now is not like the situation in Russia, where, because we have a 
bump in the road dealing with the highest levels of our government, our 
government is on the verge of collapse. It is not on the verge of 
collapse.
  Our country has the strongest economy yet remaining in the world. Our 
economy has the strongest military in the world. Our economy has the 
strongest educational system in the world. Our economy has the 
strongest health care system in the world. Our country clearly has more 
freedoms than any other country in the world. Our country helps more 
immigrants than any other country in the world. Our country welcomes 
more immigrants than any other country in the world.
  So as we go through these times, trying times in Washington, D.C., do 
not be mistaken, for there is a lot more that is going right in our 
country than

[[Page H8517]]

there is that is going wrong. But tonight, by necessity, I want to talk 
about some of the things that I think are necessary for this country to 
continue to have that reputation, that reputation being that there are 
more things going right in this country than there are going wrong.
  I think, as an elected official, and this would apply to any publicly 
elected official in this country, we must remember three other words: 
always for them. Always for them, that is our duty, that is our 
obligation, and that is our commitment. We come second, you come first: 
always for them.
  Let us go back to duty, honor, and country. As some watch the news 
here, as we watch it here in the next few days, and hopefully we can 
expedite through the difficulties we have back here in this city, but 
as it goes on for months, as we watch it through the months, if we have 
questions about integrity, if we have questions about actions, if we 
have questions about commitment, if we have questions about leadership, 
I think we can always safely return to General MacArthur's words: duty, 
honor, and country.
  I am not going to go through all of General MacArthur's speech this 
evening, but I think there are some appropriate spots to talk about 
within this speech, and then we can get to a little more of the 
substance of the other issues which I earlier discussed.
  The address by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to the cadets of 
the United States Military Academy, on May 12, 1962, was a memorable 
tribute to the ideals that inspired America. As long as other Americans 
serve their country as courageously and honorably as the general did, 
our country will remain great, and General MacArthur's words, duty, 
honor, and country, will live on.
  Let me take an excerpt from the speech: ``Duty, honor, country. Those 
three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you 
can be, and what you will be.''
  ``They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to 
fail. To regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith. To 
create hope when hopes become forlorn.
  ``Unhappily, I possess neither the eloquence of dictation, that 
poetry of imagination, nor the brilliance of metaphor to tell you what 
they all mean. The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a 
slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pundit, every demagogue, every 
cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say some 
others of entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even 
to the extent of mockery and ridicule. But those are some of the things 
they do.
  ``These words build your basic character. They mold you for your 
future roles as custodians of the Nation's defense. They make you 
strong enough to know when you are weak and brave enough to face 
yourself when you are afraid.
  ``What the words teach. They teach you to be proud and unbending in 
honest failure, but humble and gentle in success. Not to substitute 
words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the 
stress and spur of difficulty and challenge. To learn to stand up in 
the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall. To master yourself 
before you seek to master others. To have a heart that is clean, a goal 
that is high, to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep. To reach 
into the future, yet never neglect the past.
  ``To be serious, yet never to take yourself too seriously. To be 
modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the 
open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.
  ``They give you a temperate will, a quality of the imagination, a 
vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a 
temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for 
adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of 
wonder, the unfailing hope of `what next?' and joy and inspiration of 
life.''

                              {time}  1930

  Those words should be read by everybody in this country who is 
running for public office in this November's election. These words 
should be read by every teacher, every college professor, every 
minister, everybody who has someone younger than they or everybody who 
has somebody looking to them for advice.
  Those words should be read, because this country is a country of 
standards. This country is a country of expectations. This country is a 
country of great people. But it is a country that is tested at every 
turn. And if we do not meet these standards, truthfulness, dedication, 
patriotism, and it goes on and on, if we do not meet those simple 
standards, this country will go around a bend and go right off the 
curve.
  Now, we have been tested, as I said, for 300 years. Tested before the 
country became a country. Tested when we came to this land. Tested 
throughout this history. And, of course, overall we have succeeded. But 
most of the time if we look at our success, it is not a matter of luck. 
It is a matter of standards.
  When we talk about some of the areas that we need to look at that 
make this country great, there are three areas I think are specific. 
One of them is called the rule of law. Now, the basic philosophy of the 
rule of law in our country is that the law is king. Remember that. The 
law is king. The king is not the law.
  Now, there are other countries in the world, and of course throughout 
our history, where the king was above the law. In our country, we do 
not make that exception. In our country, the law is the king. Nobody is 
above the law. It is elementary for the success of this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to visit for a minute, we have had lots of 
discussion in the last few weeks about telling the truth, about 
fundamental honesty, about a word called ``perjury.'' I have here the 
definition of perjury. For the rule of law to work, we have got to have 
a system that demands honesty.
  In our system, we have an oath that we take before we testify in 
court. We have all heard that oath 100,000 times on TV shows. Some have 
experienced that oath in a court of law. Those who, like me, went 
through law school and were accepted by the local courts went through 
an oath with that court. We swear to tell the truth. We swear to it.
  Those who serve in public office were sworn to an oath and in that 
oath if it was not explicit, it was certainly implied that they had a 
commitment and a duty to tell the truth.
  Perjury: False declarations before a grand jury or court, or a court, 
any jury, any court. Whoever, under the oath at any proceeding before 
or any ancillary to the court or grand jury of the United States, 
knowingly makes any false material declaration.
  Notice that for our rule of law to prevail, we do not put a comma 
there and we do not put the words after the comma, ``except when it is 
uncomfortable.'' We do not allow an exception to perjury if it is 
uncomfortable to tell the truth. We do not allow an exception to 
perjury. We do not put a comma there and allow an exception to perjury 
if it is embarrassing to tell the truth. We do not allow an exception 
to perjury if it is a private matter and we do not want to share it 
with anybody. We do not allow someone not to tell the truth because 
they do not want to share it with anybody. We require, it is very 
simple, that they must tell the truth and the reason is that our system 
has to work.
  Those out there could put a lot of blanks behind this comma. We could 
come up with any kind of exception we want. But at end of the day, we 
are going to find out that it is very simple. There are not exceptions. 
At the end of the day, we will say to ourselves: It is a beautifully 
designed definition.
  Because, Mr. Speaker, if we allowed exceptions, how could we stop? 
And certainly if we allow an exception for one person, let us say we 
have somebody who is a great friend, a good citizen in the community, 
he has done a lot for the community. We do not put a comma on there 
that says, ``Except for Scott McInnis.'' We do not put a comma on there 
that says, ``Except for Good Guy John'' or ``Good Lady Jane.'' We 
cannot do it. It will not work. The system cannot afford a leak like 
that. Through years and years, our system, our court system, public 
officers, publicly elected officials, have sustained this definition by 
following it.
  Recently, I have gotten some interesting correspondence, as some 
might guess, from constituents regarding issues. Let me say this 
evening and make it very clear, there may appear

[[Page H8518]]

to be gaps in my comments tonight. As we all know, we have the 
strictest protocol in the country as to what we can and cannot say on 
this floor, and I am doing everything I can to stay within those rules. 
It is my obligation as a Congressman to follow the rules of this House. 
So, the comments I am about to make have been heavily edited so as not 
to offend the protocol or the rules of the House of Representatives.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a constituent letter:
  ``I've never written to any elected official before.'' By the way, 
this is dated Friday, September 11. ``I've never written to any elected 
official before. But in light of current events, I find it necessary to 
write now. I am a resident of Denver County and currently not 
registered as either a Republican or an Independent. I am a swing 
voter, since I usually vote for the person and not the party, having 
voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, Bob Dole in 1996, Dukakis in 1998 and 
anybody but Reagan in 1980 and 1984.
  ``I do not know the answers yet to the action that should be taken 
about the current presidency. I do not know whether impeachment is the 
ultimate answer until all the facts have come out. But I do feel 
strongly that hearings should commence. If nothing else, if no action 
winds up being taken, this country needs to address morality and 
honesty for all of us.
  ``What is it that makes this country great? I used to be a court 
reporter and administered the oath daily and it means something to me. 
It is hard for me to hear anyone saying, ``Everybody does it. Nobody 
prosecutes people that do not tell the truth under oath.'' If that is 
so, why do we, Mr. Congressman, bother to even administer the oath?
  ``I have two young men that I am raising as a single parent. One is 
12 years old and one is 8 years old. My 12-year-old son, Alex, and I 
were talking about the current events one evening and he remarked, `Can 
someone not tell the truth and get away with it?' When I said it is 
possible and I do not know that they will be punished for not telling 
the truth, he had a stunned look of disbelief and it was somewhat 
painful to me.
  ``This is a young man who cannot lie. He has a job walking dogs and 
one day he forgot to do his job. He did not try to hide or conceal it. 
He called up the woman he works for and he told her what had happened. 
He was sorry; to not pay him for that day because he had been careless 
and irresponsible. He could have committed a lie of omission, but he 
did not. He fessed up immediately and he took responsibility.
  ``That is the kind of adult I want him to become. Though I did not 
tell him right when he made his decision on what course to take, I 
would have made him quit his job immediately had he not done the right 
thing. I am trying to raise children in a society that is coming apart 
in many ways. But I will raise them like my parents raised me. To 
respect the truth, to take personal responsibility immediately and 
effectively.
  ``The greatest sin of character in my mind is to take the easy path, 
the path of least resistance, the popular way.
  ``Holding hearings, Mr. Congressman, may not be popular, but it may 
be the only way we the American people can sort out who we are and what 
it is that means something. Can our leaders take as much responsibility 
as my 12-year-old son? Make no mistake, Mr. Congressman, that job means 
as much to my son as the President's job probably means to him.
  ``This country must find the will to figure out who we are again. Do 
we make excuses for everything and everyone, or do we take the more 
difficult path? We are trusting you, Mr. Congressman, to do what is 
right, not what is expedient or popular. I am not sure I know what that 
is, but I know this country cannot crumble just because of a scandal. 
This must be looked into and the facts must be determined.''
  Mr. Speaker, John Adams wrote a dissertation on the canon and feudal 
law and the rule of law, and I quote from John Adams: ``The people have 
a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefensible, divine right to 
that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge. I mean of the 
characters and the conduct of their rulers.''
  Let me repeat that. ``I mean of the characters and the conduct of 
their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents and trustees 
for the people. And if the cause, the interest, and the trust is 
insidiously betrayed or wantonly trifled away, the people have the 
right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed and to 
constitute and have abler and better agents, attorneys and trustees.''

                              {time}  1945

  The people have that right. Remember, you can always come back, 
throughout this speech this evening, if you are leaving us midspeech, 
walk out of here with just those three words: duty, honor and country. 
For those of you who have to leave tonight that want to continue your 
public service, remember the other three words: Always for them, always 
for them.
  I want to say to some of you, as an elected official, let me tell 
you, I am not perfect. I had some entertaining days in my younger days. 
I was one of those people that got out of high school and people said I 
could not wait to get out. I had a blast. I had a great time in 
college. In fact, every day I have had the opportunity and the 
privilege by the Good Lord to be on this earth, I have enjoyed it.
  Sure, we have gone through some tragedies, but I am not pretending to 
be perfect. I remember one time when I was young, lying in my folks' 
hammock with my air gun, it is like a BB gun, that is what they used to 
call it. I was shooting through the hedge. What I did not think about 
was, as I shot through the hedge, I was shooting out the neighbor's 
windows.
  Now, I can tell you that when the neighbor came over, alarmed and, of 
course, the police came because they thought somebody was shooting at 
them, I thought they had kind of overexaggerated the situation, but now 
when I look back, I wonder why they did not shoot back. But when they 
came to my folks and my folks got me, I told my folks I was sorry. My 
dad said to me, that is good. We forgive you. But there are 
consequences. Just saying you are sorry does not mean you get to keep 
your BB gun. You do not, son. Give us the BB gun. We are locking it up. 
And by the way, locking up the BB gun is not your only consequence. You 
not only give up the privilege that we trusted you with, and that was 
that gun, but, son, you have damages. You have consequences. We have 
got some windows over there in the neighbor's house that you broke. 
Your apology does not go far enough. You will go out and work to pay 
for the cost of those window repairs.
  What am I alluding to? I am alluding to the fact that as a public 
official, our private lives are to an extent private. For example, I do 
not think that the public that I represent as a Congressman, mind you, 
I am a Congressman from the State of Colorado, I am voted for by the 
people of the 3rd congressional district of the State of Colorado, but 
I represent the United States of America. I am a Congressman of the 
United States, not just Colorado. Obviously, I would love to tell you 
more about Colorado. That is a lot of my heritage and so on and so 
forth, but the fact is that my constituents in Colorado or constituents 
throughout this country should not have the right to go in and 
photograph me going to the bathroom. My private matters with my wife 
are not necessarily matters of the public. But when we step up to the 
plate to represent you, there are matters of our private life that do 
become public business.
  You have a lot of trust in us. You have a lot of faith in us. So do 
not let somebody say to you, well, their private lives are of no 
consequence. What if Scott McInnis was a sleeping Chinese spy? That is 
of consequence. What if I was driving a brand new Rolls-Royce every day 
and you knew my income was $136,000 a year? You have a reasonableness 
to inquire as to, Scott, where did this money come from.
  What if I do not show up in Congress to represent you. I show up for 
roll call and leave the day after. And when you say, where have you 
been all day, you are missing a lot of votes? Sorry, that is my private 
life. That is my private life, my private life. You have no right to 
inquire just because you elected me as to what I do with my day if I am 
doing it privately. Of course, our private lives have windows in them. 
That is to be expected. We knew that in advance. Sometimes that can go 
too far.

[[Page H8519]]

  Let me move on to the next part that I spoke of, I think it is 
important to address tonight. That is moral character. There are 6 
pillars of character, core elements of character. Not too many years 
ago an organization called Character Counts, which is a bipartisan 
organization, had people like Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, actor Tom 
Selleck and many other people from across the country, sat down and 
said, as I said earlier in this speech, the pillars of this country are 
based not on the person but the character of the person. It is 
character that builds a person.
  And our country, to assure ourselves of the future as much as we have 
had comfort and satisfaction out of the past, must continue and enhance 
its obligation to character.
  And they outlined 6 areas that I think we should look at every time 
we question somebody who serves you. If we have a general in the 
military, we should question about these 6 pillars. If we have a 
private in the military, we ought to ask, we ought to look at it. If we 
have a school teacher, we ought to look at it. If we have a 
Congressman, we ought to look at it. The President? We ought to look at 
it. These are 6 standards of character.
  Let me say to you that if we drop any of these standards, you have 
created not a small leak, you have just put a gap in the Titanic. You 
have got to have standards. I am not saying perfect. I have already 
told you, I shot out the windows of my neighbor's house sitting in a 
hammock, not knowing what I was doing, when I was 8 or 10 years old. Of 
course, we do not have perfect leaders, but we all know right here in 
the gut, we know in the gut what common sense tells us is a good 
leader. What common sense, right here in the gut. You know when you are 
doing something wrong. You know when somebody else is doing something 
wrong. You also in the gut know when it is about time to stand up and 
say, what about the 6 pillars of character.
  Trustworthiness. You have every right in private life, in public life 
when you elect somebody to serve you in public office, when you appoint 
a public official to serve you, when you have a police officer that is 
hired, when you have a school teacher, your clergy, you have every 
right to trust them. You have every right to have an expectation from 
them flowing to you of trustworthiness, respect. How can you have 
leadership without respect?
  Let me bring this point up. Do you know that since about August 17th, 
every group of people that I have met with, say, three people or more, 
there has not been one group that somebody has not pulled me aside and 
told me a joke, not to be mean or anything, but told me a joke 
degrading the Presidency of this country. We cannot do that. We have to 
have respect for that highest office. If we do not have respect for the 
highest office in the country, then we have got to sit down all of us, 
Democrat, Republican, unaffiliated, nonregistered, we have to sit down 
and we have to say, what do we need to repair a model? The model has to 
have respect.
  Responsibility. Obviously, you have responsibility. You have to be 
responsible for your actions. I used to be a police officer. That is 
why I keep coming back with these police officer examples. If a police 
officer goes through town and he runs through a red light, he has got 
lights and sirens, you have a code 1 call, an officer is down, you have 
the responsibility to drive that vehicle at a safe speed in a safe 
manner to get to the scene where you are going. You have a 
responsibility with that job.

  In the letter that I just read to you from a constituent, that young 
man had the responsibility to walk his dogs, walk the neighbor's dogs. 
His mother had a responsibility to make sure that when her son did not 
carry out his responsibility, that it was her responsibility to tell 
him about that and fill the gap. Responsibility. It comes from the top 
down.
  Remember the boy that walked the dogs. He looked from the top and 
said, what if at the top there is not responsibility? Do I have to have 
responsibility? That is the consequences of not keeping this pillar of 
responsibility strong.
  Justice and fairness. We talked about justice and fairness. The rule 
of law. Let me repeat that for those of you who have just come on to 
the floor, the rule of law. Remember, in our country justice and 
fairness says that the law is king. The king is not the law.
  Caring. Caring is important. There are not a lot of people that I 
have met in my life, met one or two that I have seen through the 
criminal court system that were not caring, but I have met very few 
people outside of that that did not have a caring bone in them. Of 
course, they care, either a death in the family or somebody, despite 
the stories you read about once in a while in the newspapers. When I 
travel the highways, as I do extensively in the State of Colorado, 
whenever there is an accident, usually the biggest problem the police 
have is there is too many volunteers. There is too much help. So people 
in this country care. That is an important pillar.
  I think our country has a lot of it, and it is demonstrated by what 
we do for hungry people. We feed more hungry people than any other 
country in the world. I am talking about hungry people in other 
countries as well as our own country.
  Civic virtue and citizenship. Of course we need to have citizenship. 
Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, we will talk about them in a few minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to talk about here in a minute about the 
Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and some other societies and our clergy. 
We have civic virtue and citizenship. We talk about that. We talk about 
that in schools.
  I commented to my wife, Lori, the other day, I said, do you know 
something, is it not neat to go to any event where they play our 
national anthem? You do not see anybody sitting. They all stand. You do 
not see anybody that has to be helped up, hey, stand up, stand up, this 
is our national anthem. It is automatic. There is a lot of pride. There 
is a lot of citizenship. What builds that? Greatness. What builds 
greatness? These 6 pillars.
  Let me talk about integrity for a moment. I was going through the 
different books and looking, I love quotes. I love reading quotes. I 
found one on integrity by John F. Kennedy, our President. Let me read 
it:
       For of those to whom much is given, of those to whom much 
     is given, much is required. And when at some future date the 
     high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us, 
     recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled 
     our responsibilities to the State, our success or failure in 
     whatever office we hold will be measured by answers to four 
     questions. First, were we truly men of courage? Second, were 
     we truly men of judgment? Third, were we truly men of 
     integrity? And finally, were we truly men of dedication?

  Every one of us on this House floor, every one of us and everybody in 
public service, whether elected or appointed, should ask those four. 
First, were we truly men of courage? Second, were we truly men of 
judgment? Third, were we truly men of integrity? And finally, were we 
truly men of dedication?
  There are lots of questions that we need to ask when we talk about 
integrity. There are lots of questions that we need to ask when we talk 
about these 6 pillars of character.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, let us ask them of ourselves. What would happen 
and what should happen to us in the United States Congress if we did 
not tell the truth, if we did not have that kind of integrity? 
Unfortunately, as you and I know, in the past, as in any profession, 
whether it is the clergy or whether it is any profession, some people 
have not lived up to that standard. Thankfully, during my tenure here, 
when some of our colleagues have failed to live up to that standard, 
the process has stood up to them. So we have had accountability.
  Let us ask about the rule of law. We need to ask ourselves about the 
rule of law. How is not telling the truth any different than a burglar? 
In fact, my way of looking at things, it could be much, much more 
significant, because we all hold positions of trust. There are a lot of 
people that depend on us. There are not a lot of people in this country 
who watch what we do day-to-day. Why? Because they depend on us. There 
are not a lot of people who do not have to go to work, who can sit and 
watch C-SPAN or read books or read reports on us or come observe us 
here on the House floor every day. Why? Because they have other things 
to do. They expect us to do our job.
  Is it asking too much of us to do our job right, to do the thing that 
is right?

[[Page H8520]]

 Oh, sure, we are going to have disagreements on philosophy. Somebody 
may agree with welfare reform; somebody may oppose it. Somebody may 
want to spend more government money, raise taxes; somebody may want to 
cut taxes. That is not what I am talking about, not honest dispute. 
What I am talking about is integrity.

                              {time}  2000

  I am talking about these pillars of character counts. Does not the 
character of our leaders reflect the people that they represent? It 
does, and it can be seen here.
  I have been lucky enough to serve with my colleagues. I consider it a 
privilege. I consider myself very, very fortunate. As John F. Kennedy 
said, for those of us to whom much is given, much is required. I, like 
my colleagues, work many, many long hours. I, like my colleagues, 
travel to the district, travel throughout, listen to lots and lots of 
people. Not because we are great leaders but because we have great 
people that we represent.
  What is the difference between us and others? We actually have a 
higher standard. The average person, for example, a few minutes ago my 
colleagues will remember we were talking about the private life and the 
public life of an elected official, well, the average citizen has a 
much larger parameter protecting their private lives. In fact, in our 
Constitution we go to great length to make sure that the government 
cannot, without warrant, knock down a door and come into someone's 
house.
  When we are serving the public, we give up a portion of that. When we 
give up a portion of that, we come to those standards I talked about, 
and we have standards and we have standards that are fairly uniform.
  Let us take a couple of examples. In the military, in our military 
academies, we have all dreamed at one time or another probably of our 
kids having the privilege to go to a military academy; one of the 
highest honors in your college, when you go to college, one of the 
highest honors you can achieve in this country. Let me say, those 
standards are impeccable, impeccable. If someone lies at the academy, 
they are out; if they go out and do something they are not supposed to 
do, they are out. Why? Because these people will go on to be great 
leaders.
  Well, it ought to go on up the ladder and it does go on up the 
ladder.
  Not long ago we had a military pilot. This military pilot flew 
nuclear bombers. This military pilot was alleged to have an affair, 
something else on the side. It was against the rules. We could not risk 
it. We cannot risk that high standard because of the consequences of 
what could happen. It may not have happened with that particular 
individual but it could happen if we allowed this standard to be 
lowered, if we put a comma behind the definition of perjury.
  We have other military examples. We have people that go through a 
pretty rough sledding, for example, our Supreme Court appointees, 
before they get put into their slot.
  Ladies and gentlemen, we have an obligation in this country, 
Democrat, Republican, whatever, we have an obligation in this country 
to make sure that that standard becomes higher and higher as it goes up 
the ladder of leadership. They should expect it of us and we should 
expect it of the leaders that we have amongst ourselves, and the people 
have every right to expect that. We want it from our teachers, we want 
it from our coaches, we want it from our policeman.
  Listen to Thomas Jefferson, ``He who permits himself to tell a lie 
once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at 
length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and 
truths without the worlds believing him. This falsehood of the tongue 
leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good 
disposition.''
  Ralph Waldo Emerson, not referring specifically to these six 
character, pillars of character but referring to character in general, 
said, and many of my colleagues know this, if you act, you show 
character; if you sit still, you show character; if you sleep, you show 
character.
  Thomas Jefferson again: ``Sometimes it is said that man cannot be 
trusted with the government of himself.'' Let me repeat that. 
``Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government 
of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others?''
  That is the first inaugural address, March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson.
  We have certain standards in our society. We have oaths that we take. 
You remember the letter I read earlier. I have other letters I will 
comment on but the one that says, hey, not everybody does it. Why do we 
administer an oath? I was a court reporter. I gave those oaths.
  I was not, but I am quoting from this letter.
  We have standards in office. We have the oaths to the office of the 
presidency, I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully, faithfully, 
faithfully, execute the office of the President of the United States 
and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the 
Constitution of the United States.
  We have standards for many other jobs, which are very important, and 
in their own regards, as important as perhaps the office of the 
presidency is to the occupant of that office. Remember the lady who 
wrote about their 12-year-old that walked the dog and she said, you 
know, to that 12-year-old boy of mine his job was as important to him 
as the President's job is to him.
  Well, let us look at what we have. Policemen, remember, policemen, 24 
hours a day, I used to be one, 24 hours a day, you are on duty 24 hours 
a day. You are expected to respond to the standards, to the needs of 
the citizens, to the commitment to this country, to the commitment to 
your department, 24 hours a day. That does not mean you have to be 
perfect, but it does mean you have to come in above those standards. 
Firemen, same thing; minister, rabbi, my gosh, what a crushing blow it 
would be to any one of us to find out that our rabbi or our priest or 
our minister did not meet the standards of which he spoke to us, of 
which he taught us, of which he guided us.
  The coach, the teacher, the CEO, chief executive officer, the judge, 
a supervisor at any level, a supervisor at any level, we all have 
standards. If any of these people worked for you, think about that, if 
any of these people worked for you, what would you do?
  By the way, I work for the people. We all work for the people of this 
country. The President works for the people of this country. Police 
officers work for their community. A coach works.
  Let us take an example. You all know a good teacher. You all know 
that your communities had good teachers and good coaches. Think what 
would happen in your community if you had the best teacher you had ever 
had in the history of your school, best teacher you had ever had and 
let us say that allegations of sexual impropriety between that teacher 
and a student became known in your community and were factually shown 
to be true.
  How long, despite the fact that this teacher was an excellent 
teacher, despite the fact that this teacher was your good friend and a 
friend of many people in the community, how long would it be before 
that teacher or that coach lost their job?
  It would happen like that. You cannot show me one school district in 
this country where a teacher would get a report like that on a Friday 
and be in a classroom teaching again on a Monday. It does not happen. 
We have basic standards.

  I can tell my colleagues that we cannot have higher standards for our 
teachers than we do for our congressmen. We cannot have higher 
standards for our teachers than we do for the President of the United 
States. It is called the rule of law. It is called the greatness of 
this country. It is called the standards of character. We are role 
models. Every one of us in this chamber is fortunate to be here. Every 
one that I know, and I know every one of the Members personally, some 
not as well as others but I know my colleagues well enough to know that 
they take their oath seriously; I know them well enough to know that 
they work a lot of long hours in here.
  Sure, we get a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, a lot of it 
not, but the fact is I know that there are a lot of dedicated people on 
both sides of the aisle. That is what it should be. That is how it 
ought to be.
  Remember that when Kennedy in his speech, again going back to those

[[Page H8521]]

words he said to us, for of those to whom much is given, much is 
required.
  What are one of the elements that is required? I will tell my 
colleagues what is required: Be a role model, to be a role model.
  Now, our Boy Scouts take oaths, our Girl Scouts take oaths, our 
students stand up for the National Anthem because we have role models 
in this country. If we have a role model who for some reason can no 
longer be a role model, it is incumbent, it is incumbent upon us, it is 
our responsibility right there, it is our responsibility to get a new 
role model because we cannot afford to have poor role models in this 
country.
  Take a look, for example, about the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts 
principles. The Boy Scout law, do you know what the first element of 
the Boy Scout law is? Trustworthy. A scout tells the truth. He keeps 
his promises. His honesty is a part of his code of conduct. People can 
depend on a scout.
  Girl Scout law, I will do my best to be honest. It is honesty. It is 
honesty.
  Let me go back and talk about the scout for a moment, a letter that I 
got recently, very, very discouraged because the Eagle Scout award is 
signed by elected officials in our country. In fact, the Boy Scout, 
Eagle Scout award is signed by the President of the United States. The 
question that came in on this was, my son just got his Eagle Scout 
award. What does this certificate mean?
  We should ask ourselves, should the certificate that has our 
signatures on it meet those standards? I think it should. It is kind of 
automatic that we put the President's signature on something like that 
because we expect the office of the presidency to meet those kind of 
standards.
  Have they been met? I do not know. I do not think so. Do we have a 
role model? If we have a problem with a role model, are we ready to 
look at the role model? What do we need to improve the role model? 
Because we want the future Boy Scouts to be proud of that. We want, 
when you go in a classroom anywhere in this country, and you ask these 
young people, name the 5 people for which you have the most respect, we 
want the very highest elected officials in our country to be on that 
list of 5.
  How did you get on that list of 5? By fulfilling standards, by living 
up to those standards, by being great. That is what takes you to 
greatness.
  I want to talk now and switch gears for a minute and talk about 
integrity and honesty. We have said they are the key components of 
leadership, obviously. We said that the key components of leadership 
are not a private matter but it is of extreme public interest, whether 
our elected leaders have such characteristics and use them daily in 
their important decisions. We talked about that. We talked about 
standards. We talked about duty, honor, country.
  Now let us talk about something very practical: Effectiveness. You 
may be an honorable Congressman. You may be a well liked Congressman. 
You may be a well liked president. The question is, are you effective? 
And I think the best example to use when we talk about this is to talk 
about football.
  This is football season right now. We have a pretty clear 
understanding of what football is, and what we need. Now, from 
Colorado, of course, I take great pride in John Elway of the Denver 
Broncos. I probably just lost some of my colleagues here on the floor, 
but that aside, I want them to know I think we are going to have a 
repeat year for the Broncos, for those who might be interested, but let 
us talk about a football example. Let us say we have got a great team, 
that is the United States of America, and let us say that our line 
people, the people that defend and allow us to move forward in 
progression or stop our opponents from moving against us, let us say 
those line people are your elected officials or your appointed public 
officials.
  Let us say that for a minute on this example. Let us say we have got 
a quarterback that is a very popular quarterback, and a quarterback 
who, in some people's mind, a quarterback who has performed very well 
in his past performances, a matter of controversy but let us just say 
for the sake of the argument the quarterback was well liked and 
performed well. The quarterback shows up one day and kind of has hidden 
in his coat his arm, he will not bring his arm out. Finally the fact 
comes out that the quarterback has a broken arm.
  Now, you may disagree but we all huddle together and we argue and 
say, well, how did he break his arm? Well, I happen to think, says one, 
he broke it himself but somebody else says, no, no, it got broken but 
it was not his fault. The guy has been such a great quarterback, he 
should not have a broken arm.

                              {time}  2015

  The bottom line is our quarterback has a broken arm.
  Now, no matter how much you like the quarterback, no matter how 
unfortunate you think it is that the quarterback got his arm broken, no 
matter what party affiliation you are, no matter whether or not you are 
a registered player or a voter, the fact is you have got a lot of risk, 
you have got a lot invested in this football team. It is your team. It 
is the greatest team in the world.
  Now, do you put the quarterback with the broken arm back on the field 
no matter how much you like him? The fact is with a broken arm, the 
quarterback cannot pass, the quarterback cannot hand off, the 
quarterback cannot run with the football, and because the quarterback 
came into the locker room kind of concealing the fact that he had a 
broken arm, not everybody is sure what the quarterback is up to. So our 
line, our front line is beginning to say, ``Wait a minute. Wait a 
minute. You know, if I had to ask, maybe that quarterback would have 
come on the field or maybe the quarterback did come on the field and it 
was not until we started running plays that we figured out he had a 
broken arm.''
  That is what we have got here. Let me come back to saying that our 
quarterback has to be extremely effective. Now, the beauty of what our 
football team has, again comparing it to our country, is that we have 
got a backup quarterback. We do not have to give up and forfeit our 
game. We do not have to walk off the football field because our 
quarterback has got a broken arm. We have got a backup quarterback. 
Without missing one beat, without missing one play, we can put a backup 
quarterback in that slot and our team can continue with its great 
progress forward, or it can stop with great strength the progress of 
the other team or the attempted progress coming this direction. The 
system has got checks and balances in it.
  Folks, we need to think about what is the effect of the difficulties 
that our country is now facing. We need to ask ourselves the question, 
does our quarterback have a broken arm? We need to also say to 
ourselves, ``I love that quarterback. I like the guy. You know, it's 
not right that he got his arm broken.'' But even those of you who say 
that, and I do not think that is widely shared, but even those who say 
that, I think you especially have an obligation to step forward to the 
rest of the team and say, ``Look, I love the guy, I love the 
quarterback, but he can't pass the ball. He can't be top-notch. He 
can't deliver as he has delivered in the past. It is time to bring the 
backup quarterback onto the field.''
  Now, I should tell you that effectiveness is questioned in a number 
of editorials across this country. Let me just for a couple of minutes 
say to all of you, I hope that tonight you have gotten the gist of my 
comments. As I have said to you, my comments have been highly edited. 
Not because there was nasty language, not because there were sexual 
terms that should not have been used. None of that was in the speech to 
start with. None of it. But we have very strict protocol. I agree with 
that. I have an obligation and a duty to follow it. But I hope you have 
gotten the gist of it. The gist of it is that we have a moral duty in 
this country to make sure that the leaders that you elect are there and 
there for you. We have the rule of law that we have to live by. And we 
have the standards of conduct that we have got to stand by.
  Let me just say to you that our effectiveness at this level has been 
called into question by probably 166 major newspapers. This is a list 
of calls for resignation:
  Asheville, NC; Appleton, WI; Amarillo, TX; Albuquerque; Cincinnati 
Enquirer; Columbia, SC; Los Angeles;

[[Page H8522]]

Lynchburg, VA; Kingston; Hamilton, OH; Franklin, IN; Rocky Mountain 
News, CO; Denver Post, CO; Durham, NC; Douglas, AZ; Des Moines 
Register; Dalton, GA, Daily Citizen; Mobile Register; Monroe, LA; New 
Orleans; New London; New Orleans Times; Newport News; Newton Kansan; 
Norfolk; North Platte; Ogden, UT; Orange County; Rochester; St. George, 
UT; San Antonio, TX; Washington; Watertown, NY; Wisconsin; Topeka; 
Stockton, CA; Oregon; South Carolina; South Dakota; Washington; 
Seattle, WA; Nebraska; Savannah. You name it. One hundred sixty-six 
major players in this country are saying to us, ``Your quarterback has 
a broken arm. This team needs to get the backup quarterback onto the 
field.''
  Mr. Speaker, let me conclude the same way that I started. That is, 
with six words. First of all, the three words of General MacArthur's 
speech. As I said earlier, those three words. Any time that you have 
got a question about what is occurring here, anytime that as you go 
through the pressure that we are talking about, that we are seeing here 
in the next few days, anytime any of you out there have a question 
about the standards and the character and the ethics and can our 
quarterback play, remember, let me forget the other three words, let me 
just talk about the three most important words: Duty, honor and 
country. Let us do what we can do. Let us do what we were elected to 
do. Let us do what we are committed to do, to be sure that General 
MacArthur's words live on: Duty, honor and country.

                          ____________________