[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 109 (Thursday, September 7, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H6343]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     RESTORING DEMOCRACY TO AMERICA

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
turn.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Washington is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, you can always tell when the Republicans 
fear an upcoming election because they start apologizing for their past 
transgressions.
  So it should come as no surprise that the President finally 
acknowledged the presence and use of secret CIA prisons. The American 
people happen to think that the U.S. Constitution is a document that 
was never intended to be shredded and discarded like last week's 
newspaper, but that is exactly what is happening by the President and 
his rubber-stamp Republican Congress.
  We do not have to subvert the freedoms and principles that make us 
Americans so that the President can fumble his way through finding and 
fighting terrorists like bin Laden.
  We still believe in the rule of law, the first amendment, the 
Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We believe in the Geneva 
Convention, and the President undermines the American credibility, 
power and leadership around the world by dismissing a document so 
important that it is incorporated into the manuals of the U.S. Armed 
Forces.
  America is not a democracy at your convenience, Mr. President. 
Without the protections provided by the first amendment, the American 
people might never have known about the abuses at Abu Ghraib; and 
without the first amendment, the American people would have never known 
about the unauthorized wiretaps of the American people, even when there 
is a secret court specifically set up to enable America to defend 
itself without destroying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in 
the process.
  The American people still believe in the rule of law, and they can 
see that the President suspended the Constitution, the Geneva 
Convention, and the Bill of Rights because he finds them inconvenient.
  The policies of this administration and the Republican Congress have 
not made America safer, but America is in danger on a whole new front, 
Presidential indifference to the principles and ideals that we are 
fighting for.
  The President was given the tools and the resources after 9/11, but 
he pulled out before the job was done. He diverted our soldiers and 
resolve from Afghanistan to Iraq. It was a bad decision then, and it 
has become disastrous now in both places.
  But with an automatic rubber-stamp Congress in the House and the 
Senate, the President could tell them what to think, tell them how to 
vote and get whatever he wanted. There was no balance in our government 
to ask the tough questions and hold the President accountable. There 
still is no balance in our government that can protect the American 
people and our founding policies from the brute force of the Republican 
power machine.
  The President finally admitted he authorized secret CIA prisons, and 
in the next breath, demands the Congress authorize him to keep doing 
whatever he wants. And if the Republicans remain in power, they will do 
exactly what the President wants. No debate, no balance, nothing short 
of outright misrepresentation of the American people.
  The Republicans misrepresent the American people when they rubber-
stamp everything the President wants. That is not how America works, 
and it is not how democracy works. America is all about balance, 
debating different points of view, coming together as one Nation, 
standing on common ground. But that fundamental approach requires 
accountability, and there has been none under the Republicans.
  For goodness sake, the Republicans could not even swear in Big Oil 
CEOs when they were called to Capitol Hill over skyrocketing prices. 
Republicans could not require these people to swear to tell the truth. 
Maybe they did; maybe they did not. We will never know.
  And that is what the midterm election is really all about. America is 
tilted not merely to the right, but off the map entirely. Neocons who 
no one elected are telling the President and the Vice President what 
they are expected to do and what the Republican Congress will pass.
  The American people may not understand the rules of Congress; but 
know this, Republicans delay every vote on the floor of this House 
until they can twist enough arms to get what the neocons behind the 
curtain want. Debate is gone. Accountability is gone. And that is why 
the Republican control should be gone.
  The Republicans have squandered their chance to govern. Republicans 
have shortchanged the American people for 12 long years. With free 
speech and free press, now the American people know it.
  November is about restoring democracy to the Nation best able to 
protect it. November is about restoring balance to a Republican 
Congress that has forgotten that it works for the people, not for the 
neocons. No democracy can survive without a Congress that looks at the 
President's policies and asks questions and sometimes says no.
  This President has had a free hand for far too long, and this 
election is a referendum on President Bush. If you want more, vote for 
a Republican. If you want to change it, vote for the Democrats

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