[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 29, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1427-E1431]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  A GREAT MAN WHO CONTINUES TO OFFER EACH OF US INSIGHT FOR THE FUTURE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JENNIFER DUNN

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 29, 1999

  Ms. DUNN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to notify the House of 
Representatives of a speech recently given by the former Speaker of the 
House, Newt Gingrich. In May, with the other Republican women Members 
of Congress I invited women from around the country to attend the 
second annual Republican Women Leaders Forum.
  At the forum there were many speeches given, but one of the 
highlights was a speech given by Newt Gingrich on the morning of May 
12, 1999. His speech was heard by over 1,000 women and received ten 
standing ovations. The speech moved me and many of my colleagues who 
were in attendance.
  As the man who led us in capturing and holding a Republican majority 
in Congress for the first time since 1928, his comments continue to 
offer each of us insight for the future.

 Speech of Newt Gingrich, Republican Women's Leadership Forum, Ronald 
    Reagan International Trade Center, Washington, DC, May 12, 1999

       Thank you very, very much, and thank you Sue, [Myrick] and 
     thank you Jennifer [Dunn] for inviting me and I also want to 
     mention Mac Collins a colleague from Georgia who came by a 
     few minutes ago. It was great to see him. This is actually 
     the first serious policy speech I've made since stepping down 
     as Speaker.
       And I want to say, first of all, how grateful I am to be 
     here. I had many offers, obviously, but what Jennifer Dunn 
     has done in bringing together women leaders from all over the 
     country is so important, and when she called me a couple of 
     months ago, I said this was a date I would circle and be 
     here.
       And I'm honored to be here with all of you. And remember, 
     those of you who were here last year, I revealed that--just 
     as many of you are soccer moms. I was a ballet dad. 
     [laughter] And so I think our concern for children our 
     concern for how they grow up, we share a lot of that.
       I also couldn't help but think as Sue was talking about the 
     fact that the first two women to be officers of the House 
     were under the Republicans. The Democrats had never had a 
     woman as officer of the House. The first women to chair full 
     committees were Republicans; the first time we had three 
     women in the leadership was under the Republicans.

[[Page E1428]]

       And I noticed something that has not yet been reported in 
     Washington, but I think will, by next spring, be a serious 
     gender-gap issue nationwide, and I just want to be clear 
     about this as a starting point for this speech: I don't know 
     why there is no Democratic woman who feels confident enough 
     to run for president, but I am proud that it is the 
     Republicans who have produced the first serious, nationwide 
     woman candidate for president. [applause]
       And maybe the Democrat women are too intimidated by the 
     White House style of leadership, [laughter] maybe the 
     Democratic women are too shy, maybe they are too busy waiting 
     for Hillary to make up her mind, but I am proud that 
     Elizabeth Dole is making a serious campaign, in a serious 
     way, and frankly I would so much prefer her to either Gore or 
     Bradley, that I am proud that she is out there campaigning 
     across this country. [applause]
       And for all of our friends who may watch this later on C-
     SPAN, I am not endorsing anybody, but I think that it is 
     exciting for the Republican Party to have that caliber of 
     leadership.
       Let me also thank you for your help. Sue also made the 
     point, which is exactly right, that with your help, in 1994, 
     we ran an entirely positive campaign. We outlined a Contract 
     With America. With the help of the National Committee, our 
     biggest single ad was in TV Guide, it was small print, no 
     pictures, didn't mention the Democrats or Bill Clinton. It 
     said, ``if you hire us, this is our contract, this is what 
     we'll do.'' When we elected a new generation, and Sue was one 
     of the leaders, a brand new team came to Washington and much 
     to the shock of people, we actually kept our word.
       We passed welfare reform three times. Twice the president 
     vetoed it, the third time it was very popular, we were close 
     to the election, he announced he had invented it in Arkansas, 
     was sorry it took so long, and took full credit and signed 
     it.
       But the fact is, for the Republicans who fought for it, 
     today 43% fewer people are on welfare, and 43% more folks are 
     working, and that is a key reason we have a better economy, 
     not Bill Clinton's malarkey. [applause]
       The fact is, with Jennifer Dunn, and Sue Myrick, and 
     another presidential candidate, John Kasich, who had the 
     sheer courage as Budget Committee Chairman to produce the 
     first balanced budget in a generation, [applause] you are now 
     at a point where if you don't elect another liberal congress, 
     and you don't elect another liberal president, we will have a 
     generation of balanced budgets for the first time in 70 
     years. And that has lowered interest rates, and that has been 
     a factor in this economy, not Bill Clinton's malarkey. 
     [applause]
       And let's be clear: Bill Clinton was for a balanced budget 
     after the 300th focus group. He fought us every step of the 
     way until he decided he had no choice, and for him to take 
     credit is just a sign that he is the man we know he is. 
     [laughter] [applause]
       Finally, with your help, we passed tax cuts. A pro-family 
     five-hundred-dollar tax credit, against liberal opposition. A 
     capital gains tax cut to create more jobs, against liberal 
     opposition. A cut in the death tax to strengthen family ties, 
     against liberal opposition. And that helped the economy grow, 
     with zero help from Bill Clinton and Al Gore, except they 
     caved in at the end and signed the bill they opposed. 
     [applause] So let's be clear about why this economy's 
     healthy.
       But it happened because of your help. It happened because 
     you were willing to work hard, elect a Republican Congress, 
     stand by us and make us--not only were we the first 
     Republican majority in 40 years in the House, we were the 
     first Republican majority re-elected in the House since 1928. 
     And because of your help, we were also the first Republican 
     majority in the House elected to a third term since 1926.
       Now, I made a very difficult decision three days after the 
     election. Because I talked with my colleagues, and I reached 
     a conclusion that I'd been trying to do two jobs. One to be a 
     visionary, a strategist and a teacher, to tell the truth as I 
     saw it. And the other to manage the House on a daily basis. 
     And the two jobs weren't the same job.
       One job required patience, endurance, willingness to 
     listen, a willingness to get every day the best you could get 
     and move on. That's the Speaker of the House. It's a tough, 
     tough job, and my heart goes out to Denny Hastert. He's a 
     great American, and I think as he learns the job he's going 
     to be better and better, and you're going to be very proud by 
     next year. And compared to Dick Gephardt, Denny Hastert is 
     absolutely the Speaker we need, and Denny Hastert was the 
     person I backed strongly personally, because he has the 
     instincts to be a good legislative leader. Which means, he's 
     not always going to look good in the press. That's not the 
     job of a Speaker. Tim O'Neil didn't always look great in the 
     press, but he was a very effective Speaker for the Democrats. 
     But he will get the job done. He passed a budget this year, 
     which I couldn't get done last year. And he'll keep getting 
     things done, because that's the job of the Speaker.
       But it meant that for two years, I have been drowning. I 
     couldn't do what I did differently, which is to tell the 
     truth as I understand it. It's not the ``truth;'' the 
     ``truth'' is known by God and the rest of us seek it. But to 
     try every day to tell where we have to go. The way we 
     developed the Contract.
       The last five months I've had a chance to be out around the 
     country. To be beyond the beltway, to not watch the Sunday 
     shows, to ignore all the babble that his city mistakes for 
     dialogue. [laughter] [applause]
       And, I've had a chance to really think about where we are, 
     and where we've going. And I decided that what I want to do 
     today, is share with you some thoughts about Littleton, and 
     about Kosovo. I haven't talked on either one, and I probably 
     won't do it again for a good while. But if I'm going to come 
     here and be with you, I'm going to try to be who I've always 
     been, which is a person who tried to described what he really 
     believed.
       Let me start by saying that the thing that most clearly 
     hits you, when you get beyond the elite media, is that this 
     is a great country, filled with good people, and many of them 
     achieve amazing things.
       For every child who ends up on the cover of a magazine 
     because they killed somebody, there are literally a million 
     children going to school, trying to understand their role in 
     life, trying to be decent to their fellow citizens.
       For every child who ends up in a way that is tragic, there 
     are hundreds of thousands of children who are trying very 
     hard to learn to be American citizens. To be the kind of 
     person their family can be proud of.
       And I think we need to start by placing in perspective both 
     Littleton and Kosovo.
       We are the greatest society of freedom in the history of 
     the human race. More people pursue happiness, of more racial 
     backgrounds, with greater religious diversity than in any 
     country in the history of the world, and we should be proud 
     that for most of the time, America works, despite the news 
     media mis-coverage of this country. [applause]
       And if my friends in the press think I'm tough on them, 
     they're right. The truth is, if Thomas Edison invented the 
     electric light bulb today, it would be reported tonight on 
     the networks with a story which began, ``the candle making 
     industry was threatened today.'' [laughter] [applause]
       But, we are also not only a remarkable country, we are the 
     only global superpower in the history of the human race. No 
     other country has ever had the potential power that we have. 
     And yet, as a great country, and a good society of decent 
     people, we have Littleton. As the most powerful nation in the 
     history of the world, we have Kosovo.
       And every Sunday you hear all the local self-appointed 
     experts babble on with whatever trivia they heard that week.
       I want to give you my honest, personal thoughts on both 
     those topics. Some of this may be a little controversial. And 
     it should be.
       And I want to do it in a spirit, as a history teacher, of 
     Emile Zola, who wrote J'Accuse, ``I accuse.`` A Jewish 
     officer in the French army had been framed, largely because 
     of anti-Semitism. The elite culture had covered up the 
     framing they were all going to go along with destroying him, 
     and Emile Zola wrote a public letter saying, ``this is 
     wrong.''
       And because of the moral courage of his letter, French 
     society talked to itself, there was a great crisis, and it 
     changed. Captain Dreyfuss was exonerated, and the people who 
     had framed him were punished.
       So in the tradition J'Accuse, and Emile Zola, I want to say 
     to the elite of this country, the elite news media, the 
     liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse 
     you in Littleton, and I accuse you in Kosovo, of being afraid 
     to talk about the mess you have made, and being afraid to 
     take responsibility for the things that you have done, and 
     instead foisting on the rest of us pathetic banalities 
     because you don't have the courage to look at the world you 
     have created. [applause]
       Let me talk first about Littleton. A great tragedy. A 
     tragedy that should frighten every one of us. Both for those 
     who were killed, and for the killers. Because it means that 
     any of us, in any school, no matter how good, could lose our 
     children. And it means any of us, in any home, could lose our 
     child.
       And we should have a national, open discussion about ``how 
     did we get here?'' How did this great country, filled with 
     good people who do amazing things allow it to degenerate to a 
     point where young boys could think such weird, perverse 
     thoughts and then act on them. Where the innocent could die 
     for no reason.
       Let me give you my answer. One which I'm sure I'll be 
     castigated for, and I'm sure my usual critics will write 
     harsh columns about. But it is the truth, and it makes them 
     very guilty and very uncomfortable, and they reflect that in 
     their attacks.
       We have had a thirty-five year experiment, in a unionized, 
     bureaucratic, credentialed, secular assault on the core 
     values of this country. And we should not be surprised that 
     they eventually yield bad fruit, because they are bad seeds. 
     They make no sense as a society.
       For thirty-five years, God has been driven out of the 
     classroom, and we have seen it result in a secular, atheistic 
     system [applause] in which God is not allowed to exist. 
     [applause]
       For thirty-five years the political and intellectual elites 
     of political correctness have undermined the core values of 
     American history, so that young people may not know who 
     George Washington is, or they may not know who Abraham 
     Lincoln is, but they do know what MTV is, and that is not 
     progress, that is decadence, and we should say it bluntly. 
     [applause]
       For thirty-five years, bureaucratic, credentialed unions 
     have driven knowledge out of the classroom, so today you can 
     have a certified teacher who can't speak a foreign

[[Page E1429]]

     language try to teach it, while the person who can speak it 
     can't teach it because they either don't pay the union dues 
     or haven't gotten credentialed, and that is madness. 
     [applause]
       We keep looking at our physics scores and say ``why do they 
     decline?'' And then you find that in the inner city we have 
     people who don't know any physics teaching physics. And you 
     have a student who sits there and knows their teacher doesn't 
     know.
       You can't have authority unless you earn it. And you can't 
     have a bureaucratic, unionized, credentialed system that has 
     any authority left, because it drives out the very skills and 
     the very capacities that are necessary.
       And most teachers are decent, and most teachers are hard 
     working, and most teachers are trying. And I am a product of 
     the public schools, and I actually care about them enough to 
     try and change them, not just have a mantra of paying off the 
     unions while doing nothing to save the schools. [applause]
       Let me say his very clearly. And it will be very 
     controversial. For a generation, Hollywood and computerized 
     games have undermined the core values of civility and it is 
     time they were stopped by a society that values free speech 
     enough to protect it. [applause]
       One of the great founders of CBS News, Edward R. Murrow's 
     producer, had a wonderful saying, ``Just because you have the 
     right to say it, doesn't mean it is the right thing to say.'' 
     And let us say to Hollywood, and let us say to the Nintendos 
     and the other games, if you are going to be sick, we are 
     going to find a way to protect this country from you, and 
     whether that means exposing movies to liability 
     litigation, whether that means exposing computerized games 
     to litigation, whether it means challenging the Democrats 
     to cut off the fund-raising in a verse. Don't tell us you 
     care about children, and then have the people corrupting 
     their lives raise your money, while you tell us you care 
     about traditional values. [applause]
       So, if Al Gore and Bill Bradley really want to help 
     America, they can lay a standard down. They won't raise a 
     penny in Hollywood from anybody who doesn't sign a standard 
     that says they will make movies of voluntary decency.
       You don't have to allow the most corrupt, the most 
     depraved, the most violent, just because you personally don't 
     have the guts for your career to say ``I won't do it.'' And 
     they could set a standard and say, ``we're only going to do 
     fund-raisers with producers and stars who do decent films,'' 
     and you would suddenly see a crisis of identity in both the 
     Democratic party and Hollywood. [applause]
       And I'm not using that just to make a partisan point, I'm 
     trying to make a deeper point. Don't tell us the Constitution 
     blocks us from civility. Don't tell us that freedom of speech 
     means the freedom to be so depraved, so violent, so 
     disgusting that our children grow up in a world where they 
     think that killing someone else is a reasonable behavior. And 
     it's true on television, it's true in the movies, it's true 
     in these games.
       And I would challenge the lawyers of America: Don't tell me 
     how cleverly you can protect those who are bad, tell me how 
     well you can find some solution to bring Hollywood to its 
     senses and to bring the game people to their senses.
       And I'm not for censorship. But I am for the society 
     setting standards and shaming those who refuse to have a 
     standard that makes sense. [applause]
       And for two generations we have raised the taxes on working 
     families so that the second spouse has no choice except to go 
     to work, almost entirely to pay the family's taxes. Then we 
     talk about ``latch-key kids,'' when it is the very liberal 
     politicians who raised the taxes who created the latch-keys. 
     [applause]
       But about Littleton, liberal politicians and the elite 
     media yell ``gun-control'' because they can't talk about 
     their values, and the effect they have had.
       Let me set some simple standards. When Al Gore talks God 
     and Faith, is he for voluntary school prayer, or isn't he? 
     Does he want to bring God back in, or does he want to give us 
     psychobabble? Yes or no? Don't tell me why you're ``sort of 
     for it,'' and ``Littleton is certainly a tragedy,'' and I 
     certainly ``feel.'' We've had eight years of that.
       Let's be serious. This was a mistake to take God out of the 
     classroom. [applause] It was a mistake to take the right to 
     pray out of the classroom. Now, are you for changing the 
     mistake, or not changing the mistake? [applause]
       But don't tell us you're really worried about the 
     consequences, but you don't want to change the cause.
       When politicians talk about families, is Bill Bradley for 
     more tax cuts, so families have more time with their 
     children, or is he against tax cuts? Does he want to abolish 
     the death tax so we strengthen family bonds, or is he for the 
     death tax, even though it clearly makes no sense as a society 
     to punish grandparents and parents for saving for their 
     children and grandchildren. It is the socially dumbest tax we 
     have. [applause]
       When a liberal talks about values, would he or she actually 
     like us to teach American history? Would they actually like 
     young children to learn that George Washington was an ethical 
     man? A man of standards? A man who earned the right to be 
     father of this country? Would they actually like us to learn 
     that Lincoln agonized, or is discussing those kind of moral 
     values culturally inappropriate? Because we have to be a 
     multi-cultural society, where you get to pick and invent your 
     own culture? Something which historically no civilization has 
     ever successfully done because it means you've got thirteen 
     to fifteen year olds in total confusion, and they're being 
     asked to invent a reasonable civilization?
       It takes thousands of years to create a civilization, and 
     then we learn it, and we stand on the shoulders of the 
     lessons of every generation that paid in blood to learn these 
     lessons. And to ask young people of thirteen and fifteen to 
     invent a civilization is not only ahistorical, it violates 
     everything we know about how human beings function.
       And we should say something simple: Every child should know 
     the Declaration of Independence, and why it says, ``We hold 
     these truths to be self-evident.'' Every child should learn 
     the Declaration of Independence, and why it says, ``We are 
     endowed by our Creator.''
       When those children killed in Littleton, they were killing 
     the children of God, who had been endowed with the 
     unalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
     happiness. And I will bet you those kids didn't know it, they 
     didn't believe it, they didn't understand it, because for two 
     generations the elite liberals in academia and in the news 
     media have babbled on about somehow getting rid of all this 
     western ethnocentric whatever . . . it is irrelevant what 
     your color is. It is irrelevant what geography you come from. 
     When you come to America, you learn to be an American and 
     that means you are endowed. [applause]
       So, I ask each of you, you go back to your state. You ask 
     your state legislatures and your governor, let's reestablish 
     teaching the Constitution, let's reestablish teaching the 
     Declaration of Independence, let's make sure every child 
     knows what Creator means, and then let's see how the liberals 
     try to go to the Supreme Court to argue that you can't talk 
     about the Creator in class when in fact it is a historical 
     document about a historic fact that the Founding Fathers all 
     believed in God, including Thomas Jefferson, thank you very 
     much, it's his language. [laughter] [applause]
       And so, on Littleton, let me simply say, most children are 
     good. Most schools are safe, but we have been given a wake up 
     call that the experiment in secular liberalism has failed, 
     and we had better truly change, or there will be more 
     symptoms of the pain. And every time our friends on the left 
     babble about gun-control, or some psycho-therapy, or some 
     other kind of feel good stuff, we ought to come back to the 
     basics.
       Are you prepared to cut taxes on working families? Are you 
     prepared to eliminate the death tax? Are you prepared to 
     actually have teachers who know something as a requirement of 
     teaching? Are you prepared to reinstate American history and 
     learning about America? Are you prepared to talk about the 
     Creator, and are you prepared to allow children to pray 
     voluntarily? And if you're not for those things, you're not 
     for the changes that are necessary to make sure that we have 
     fewer Littletons and more children who are happy and stable. 
     [applause]
       Now, and let me say that avoiding future Littletons 
     requires real change. This has been a mistake. For thirty-
     five years, we have gone in the wrong direction. This is 
     about real change. And without real change, it won't change.
       Let me now turn to foreign policy. Let me say that I have 
     watched with some amazement. I think it is fair to say that 
     of all the Republican leaders in the last six years, I was 
     the most consistently supportive of the president, because I 
     felt as an Army brat, having been overseas, having lived 
     through experiences where politicians back home were critical 
     and divisive, having been through the Vietnam war where some 
     American future politicians led demonstrations in foreign 
     countries, [laughter] having been through Desert Shield and 
     watched every elected Democrat leader vote against Desert 
     Storm, I know how unnecessarily divisive domestic politics 
     can be.
       I also know that as a superpower we have a unique role, and 
     let me say, very clearly: I believe the United States must 
     provide leadership in the world, I believe we are 
     irreplaceable, and I oppose unalterably anyone who argues for 
     withdrawal and isolation, because I believe it is our 
     historic destiny and fate.
       There is no other country big enough, complex enough, or 
     capable of providing leadership on a world-wide basis, and if 
     we pull back, this planet will become chaotic, and violent, 
     and our children and grandchildren will pay in blood for our 
     timidity.
       Now having said that, let me also remind you, you can lead 
     your neighborhood without fixing breakfast for all your 
     neighbors. [laughter] You can lead a community clean-up drive 
     without cleaning out every garage yourself.
       But let me talk about Kosovo in the historic setting 
     because, in the last few weeks the crisis has begun to mount 
     in a way that I would have thought, in January, unthinkable.
       For fifty years, we led NATO to keep Russia out of places 
     like Yugoslavia, which was the only anti-Soviet communist 
     state in Europe. And now, in a few short months, the Clinton-
     Gore administration, has fashioned a policy to bring 
     Russia into one of the places we invented NATO to keep 
     them out of. This is a significant mistake.
       For the entire history of the human race, the Chinese have 
     never been actively involved in Europe. And now in a few 
     short

[[Page E1430]]

     months, the Clinton-Gore administration has managed to 
     fashion a policy which gives the Chinese a voice in Europe. 
     The scapegoating in this city will be pathetic, and has to be 
     described honestly as scapegoating.
       Let me give you the example of the Chinese embassy. The 
     Clinton-Gore administration ignores intelligence, because as 
     good liberals, they don't believe in a strong America leading 
     the world. They under-fund it, they reduce the number of 
     analysts. They have too few people. They send liberals out to 
     run the agency in such a way--this is not the current 
     director, but the preceding director and his staff--but they 
     undermine the morale of our most effective intelligence 
     agency.
       The first director, Jim Woolsey, got to see the president 
     one time. In fact there was a joke that when the plane 
     crashed into the White House, it was Woolsey trying to get in 
     to see the president. [laughter] I did not make that up, you 
     can ask Jim Woolsey. [laughter]
       So, for six and a half years the Clinton-Gore 
     administration under-funds intelligence, abuses it, neglects 
     it--go ask how many people there are in the Central 
     Intelligence Agency that speak Serbian. Having had nine years 
     to prepare for Kosovo, beginning in 1990, how much did we 
     beef up? Or ask them how many can speak Chinese? How big is 
     the shortage of Chinese language experts in the American 
     intelligence community?
       So having had six and a half years of under-funding, the 
     CIA makes a mistake. But the Commander-in-Chief is not 
     responsible. The Commander-in-Chief is never responsible. If, 
     in a war, the president is not accountable, then what does 
     the Constitution mean? COMMANDER-in-Chief. [applause]
       In all of this Washington babble about who is responsible, 
     the Clinton-Gore administration had six-and-a-half years, 
     almost seven years, to beef-up our intelligence capabilities. 
     They didn't do it.
       I forced the extra funding last fall, finally, and it is 
     still too little, and if we are going to be the superpower 
     that leads the entire planet we need a dramatically bigger 
     intelligence capability.
       It doesn't mean you need to overhaul the CIA. It doesn't 
     mean you don't have to re-think our intelligence capability, 
     but I am tired of liberals yelling ``reform'' when what they 
     mean is ``don't fund them,'' and then blaming the people they 
     didn't fund for the mistake that was human error.
       We got it last year when the Indian nuclear explosion was 
     not detected because we don't have enough analysts, and we 
     don't have enough satellites to watch everything, and now we 
     are getting it this year. The fact is that the Clinton-Gore 
     Administration under-funds intelligence and we are now paying 
     the price with the Chinese for the Clinton-Gore failure to 
     provide adequate funding. [applause]
       The fact is, the Clinton-Gore Administration has under-
     funded defense, and God help us if either the North Koreans 
     or the Iraqis decide to take advantage of our current 
     disposition. Does this administration honestly believe that 
     nobody else in the world watches CNN? [laughter]
       The reason you have to have, and I'm very serious, this is 
     a matter of life and death. The reason is you have to have a 
     military big enough to do three things: One campaign; be 
     ready for a second campaign; and retain a training and 
     procurement base for a third campaign.
       And [RNC] Chairman [Jim] Nicholson knows this. He is a West 
     Point graduate. He served in Vietnam. He understands these 
     things. The reason you have to do all three simultaneously is 
     because you are in a dangerous world.
       And when you focus on Iraq, and the President did for a 
     little while in 1997. And I was with him, because I thought 
     he was doing the right thing? And then he forgot it. Saddam 
     is still there, but none of the stated goals--remember all 
     the worries, the sack of sugar, the danger of biological 
     weapons. They didn't go away. It is just that this 
     administration's attention span is relatively short.
       So Saddam is still there. The world is getting more 
     dangerous. He is doing every single thing that Bill Clinton 
     and Bill Cohen told us to worry about, but we're not in that 
     campaign right now because we can't afford to be.
       The North Koreans are lying to us about nuclear weapons. We 
     know they are lying. They know we know they are lying. The 
     Chinese, the South Koreans, and the Japanese know they are 
     lying. And they know we know they are lying. And the North 
     Koreans are routinely irrational. Despite 50 years of effort 
     we know almost nothing about North Korea because it is the 
     most sealed off society in the world. And it is preeminently 
     dangerous.
       And then you have Kosovo. A campaign designed as though all 
     of military history ceased to exist. As though there are no 
     lessons of Vietnam. The very people who were opposed to 
     Vietnam are now bringing us a European Vietnam, and they have 
     learned nothing from the Vietnam campaign. [applause]
       Compare the lessons of Desert Storm and Kosovo. In Desert 
     Storm, President George Bush, Secretary of State Jim Baker, 
     National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of 
     Defense Dick Cheney, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin 
     Powell said very clearly to the theater commander Norman 
     Schwartzkopf, ``what is it going to take to  win decisively 
     with minimum American casualties in the shortest possible 
     time.'' And they spent six-months in a majestic, slow, 
     careful buildup of overwhelming military force. They 
     launched an air campaign that in six weeks pulverized the 
     Iraqis and they launched a four-day ground campaign. It is 
     the textbook study of a how a Democracy prepares 
     relentlessly to impose victory with minimum American 
     casualties.
       Now I don't know what General Clark was thinking about, 
     because he knows better. And I don't know what the Chairman 
     of the Joint Chiefs was thinking about, because he knows 
     better. And I don't know why none of the Joints Chiefs have 
     resigned [applause] because this campaign is a violation of 
     every rule I know of in how you design a campaign. Instead of 
     Theodore Roosevelt's speak softly and carry a big stick, 
     we've yelled and carried a toothpick.
       And what has happened? The people we were protecting were 
     driven out, killed, or raped. The people that are under the 
     shelter of the United States of America are no longer in 
     Kosovo. The Serbians accepted a brutal choice: we get to kill 
     them, and they get to kill Albanians. But they've accepted 
     it.
       The Russians are now reestablished as a power in Europe. 
     The Chinese are getting engaged in Europe. We are wasting our 
     resources. Our prestige is diminishing. And all over the 
     world we look like a violent, helpless, pathetic country.
       Would you want to be protected by a Clinton Administration 
     that guaranteed that protection meant you would be driven out 
     of your home? They allowed it to happen to the Kurds in 
     northern Iraq. They are allowing it to happen now to the 
     Albanians in Kosovo.
       And the President, of course, isn't responsible because he 
     is in a permanent campaign, so he doesn't have to be 
     Commander-in-Chief unless we are seeing him step off the 
     airplane to be saluted by military people who know better. 
     They know this is a pathetic disaster for the United States. 
     [applause]
       Finally, with the Chinese having carefully orchestrated 
     riots because even when they try to buy an administration, 
     they can't always get what they want. Let's be clear, the 
     Clinton Administration's Justice Department did everything it 
     could to block an honest investigation of the Chinese money 
     laundering, and we know far less today about either the 
     Chinese cash or nuclear secrets.
       And by the way, I don't blame the Chinese for stealing our 
     secrets, they are a sovereign power. They should do what's in 
     their interest. I blame the Clinton Administration for not 
     protecting the American secrets from China. [applause]
       The Chinese staged these riots, which you know are staged, 
     because the Chinese lock up people who get up and say ``hi, 
     I'd like to have free speech.'' Five years in jail. 
     [laughter] ``I'd like to go riot against the Americans.'' Can 
     we give you a bus? [laughter] I mean, who's kidding whom; 
     these are staged, organized government dictatorship riots.
       We are a country without a defense against Chinese 
     ballistic missiles. We could lose some of our men and women 
     in Kosovo. We could lose a lot of people if the Iraqis or the 
     North Koreans try to take advantage of our weakness. We could 
     lose an American city, and there is no ballistic missile 
     defense.
       Why? Because the party of trial lawyers believes that we 
     should have a legal document with a ``Soviet Union,'' which 
     disappeared in 1991, rather that using the best scientists 
     and the best engineers. And we need a crash program to apply, 
     not just for the U.S., but a global missile defense, so that 
     all of our allies can rest safe. And we need to adopt a very 
     simple rule.
       Let me be very clear, I'm not arguing for being in Kosovo 
     or not. And I would actually urge most of my former 
     colleagues to just shut up about it. Having civilian 
     politicians give their ideas about their campaign plan is 
     sort of irrelevant.
       We ought to have a very simple set of standards as a 
     country. If we say that we are going to do something, and if 
     the President comes to a joint session--which this President 
     should do, and should have done for three months, and how he 
     can get away with not addressing the Congress and talking to 
     the nation about Kosovo is beyond me. [applause]
       We ought to have a standard rule, if you are going to 
     commit American forces, you address a joint session. I mean 
     this for all Presidents for our future. We've got to learn to 
     lead and we've got to learn to do it within our Constitution.
       He should come to the Congress. He should say, ``This is 
     the problem. These are our values. These are our goals.'' He 
     should then say a simple thing: ``I have instructed the 
     chairmen of the Joint Chiefs to design a military campaign 
     plan that will achieve victory for America with minimum cost 
     in lives and minimum use of time. The chairman will be 
     expected to execute that campaign and if it fails, he would 
     be retired and his successor will be expected to design a 
     successful campaign.'' No elected politician should attempt 
     to micro-manage whether or not we move Apache helicopters. 
     [applause]
       Let me just close with this personal testimonial, for 
     whatever it's worth. My stepfather served 27 years in the 
     U.S. Army infantry. It was at the end of the Second World 
     War, fought in Korea, fought in Vietnam. We lived--when I was 
     growing up, I was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. We lived 
     in Fort Raleigh, Kansas; Avignon, France; Stuttgart, Germany; 
     and then Fort Benning, Georgia; which is how I became a 
     Georgian.

[[Page E1431]]

       He served his country because he loved it. He served his 
     country because he thought it really mattered. He thought a 
     world in which the Soviets dominated or the Nazis dominated 
     would be a horrible world. A world in which America led 
     would be a remarkably better world.
       Not a perfect world, because people aren't perfect. If you 
     believe in God, you know how inadequate you are. But a world 
     in which a decent country, of decent people, of all races and 
     all nationalities could pursue freedom and safety, and could 
     create prosperity like no one has ever seen. Forty years ago, 
     he convinced me at the battlefield at Verdum, when I was 
     fifteen, that this is all real.
       For 40 years, with the help of the Georgia Federation of 
     the Republican Woman, and the Young Republicans, and 
     thousands of volunteers and lots of donors, and the people of 
     Georgia, I was allowed to study, to learn. I was allowed to 
     run for office and lose twice. I as allowed to run a third 
     time and win. Ultimately, with your help, we created a 
     majority.
       I have not talked about any issues for five months. I have 
     not really laid out what I feel from the heart, but I 
     couldn't come here today in the middle of the agony that each 
     of us must feel for the children and the families of 
     Littleton.
       I couldn't come here today, and let's be honest, in the 
     tradition of Lincoln, we should feel as much agony for the 
     innocent Serbs that are being killed as we feel for the 
     Albanians. We are all humans. Our Creator endows us all.
       And we have to be a great enough nation that our hearts go 
     out to everybody in a conflict. And that we want to help 
     everybody. We want to find a way to lead a world without 
     violence because our moral dedication, not our purity, let me 
     be clear to my liberal friends none of us are pure. That is 
     not what this is about. Purity of purpose doesn't mean purity 
     of execution, because we are humans.
       This has been the greatest opportunity for simple, everyday 
     human beings to get up in the morning, to love their 
     families, to pursue happiness, to work for a living, to 
     create a better future than has ever been created. And we 
     have to save it domestically or we will have many more 
     Littletons. And we have to learn to lead in the world or we 
     will have many more Kosovos.
       Sadly, not happily, because I tried for six years to work 
     with this administration. Sadly, the Clinton-Gore 
     Administration has proven both in their reaction to Littleton 
     and in their utter total mismanagement in Kosovo, that 
     liberalism once again has failed, and we have to be the 
     standard barriers.
       Just as we were with Eisenhower, just as we were in 1968 
     with Nixon, who ended the Vietnam War that Johnson started, 
     just as we were with Ronald Reagan who created the cause of 
     freedom worldwide and defeated the Soviet Empire, just as we 
     were with George Bush, who had the nerve and the discipline 
     to let the military run a winning campaign, despite every 
     liberal Democratic elected leader in the Congress.
       We have to have the nerve over the next eighteen months to 
     tell the truth to the American people. To let the news media 
     scream at us, and to count on the fact that, in the end, this 
     is a great country, filed with good people, and they know 
     better than the talking heads on Sunday morning.
       Thank you, good luck and God Bless you, [applause]

       

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