[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 8 (Tuesday, February 1, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        AMERICAN MEDIA SHOWS PESSIMISM REGARDING IRAQI ELECTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Price of Georgia). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, you know, when Ronald Reagan was 
President, he told a story of the difference between an optimist and a 
pessimist. And he used the example of two little boys who were put into 
a room full of horse manure. And the one little boy started crying very 
viciously, very seriously, because there were not any toys in the room. 
And the other little boy was digging around happy as a lark.
  And they asked him, why are you so happy? And he said, with all of 
this horse manure in here, there has got to be a pony here somewhere.
  The reason Reagan told that story was because he wanted people to 
realize that optimism is something that everybody should try to acquire 
in their lives and look at the positive things. And during his 
administration, he was so optimistic that he changed the whole attitude 
of the American people and made the 8 years of his administration a 
real success.
  I would like to contrast that, if you will, with what we have seen in 
the last couple of days. Sixty percent of the people of Iraq went to 
the polls to vote knowing that some of them might be killed. A lot of 
people wonder if that would happen here in America.
  In America we have what, 30, 40, 50 percent of the people vote if we 
are very lucky, and we do not have any guns pointed at anybody. And yet 
in Iraq these people knew their lives were in jeopardy, and they still 
put their finger in that ink and held it up for the people to see in 
the cameras so they could take pictures, because they were proud that 
they had a chance to show their freedom.
  They were optimistic, very optimistic like Ronald Reagan talked 
about, for the future of Iraq. And yet last night when I watched the 
news, I watched several of the major news networks, and I will not go 
into their names tonight, but it is the same people that you hear all 
the time.
  They were once again pointing out all of the things that went wrong 
in Iraq during the elections, and all of the problems that lay ahead of 
us, and how this is just a first step in a long series of steps that 
have to be taken; and they were not celebrating at all this tremendous 
step toward democracy and freedom that took place in one of the 
toughest spots in the whole wide world.
  And I would just like to say to my friends in the media, that was a 
great thing that happened. Sixty percent of the people who lived under 
a tyrannical leader for years and years, who suffered torture and 
heartache for decades, finally had a chance to vote; and even though 
they were doing it with guns being pointed in their direction, people 
being blown up, and people being beheaded, they took the chance and 
went and voted, 60 percent of them. They are optimists. And I just wish 
the national media would realize it and become optimistic themselves.

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