[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 47 (Wednesday, March 18, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 LEADING THIS COUNTRY OUT OF THE ABYSS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to read that President Bush 
made his first address since he left the Office of President yesterday 
in Canada. President Bush said that he loved his country more than he 
loved his party, and he wished President Obama success. I thought that 
was really telling. President Bush, while I differed with him on many 
policies and many of his initiatives, I always felt he was a good and 
decent person. And I think what he said showed that in many ways he is.
  I wish that the people on the other side of the aisle, rather than 
coming here and constantly bringing up false information about our 
current President, wishing him ill will--which of course Rush Limbaugh 
has done, the leader of the other side, and others, like former Vice 
President Cheney, who came out for television on Saturday and had some 
statements that were very inappropriate for a former Vice President to 
make this quickly after he has left office. There is a certain time 
when Presidents and Vice Presidents should go back to their private 
lives, maybe practice shooting, and learning how to shoot in a proper 
direction and not jeopardize their friends, and do other things, but 
not necessarily take shots at the new President of the United States 
and not claim that the American public is less safe, which is not in 
any way true. As my colleague here from Kentucky has well spoke in a 5 
minute recently, the other side of the story and the full side of the 
story showed history that we are safer.
  But the bottom line is, President Bush said he wished our country 
well, his country came before party. And it gets tiring to be here and 
hear the other side take shots and shots and shots and hoping they can 
win in 2012 and take back this House in 2010 rather than working for 
the American public and the American government.
  We are at a very critical time, caused by years of lack of regulation 
and deficit spending, wars that we didn't need to be into, loss of life 
and monies, and lack of regulation that Mr. Paulson was responsible for 
in giving AIG this money, and in many other ways, without regulations 
and restrictions on benefits. And President Obama has had to deal with 
that.
  I support our President. And I am proud to be a Member of this 
Congress trying to lead this country out of the abyss of which it 
seemed to be heading at the end of this last term.
  I am also proud to join in a few minutes with my fellow sophomore 
Majority Makers, Mr. Klein of Florida and Mr. Yarmuth of Kentucky. 
We're called the Majority Makers because we did take this Congress in 
2006 back, but it was after 12 years of Republican control in the House 
and Senate, 1994 to 2006, and a Republican administration that caused 
the deficit problems, caused the budget problems, caused the economic 
crisis. We plan to bring it out.

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