[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14949-14950]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        PRIORITIES AND ABSENCES

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I wish to talk for a few minutes about 
a subject different than the one we have been hearing about most of 
this morning.
  I rise as a proud member of the Senate. I treasure every moment that 
I serve here. I look at my voting record of over 20 years and I am 
proud of that record. It is important; whatever we do here is 
important. So I rise today to raise a question about a disturbing 
television ad that President Bush is running against our colleague, 
Senator Kerry. The ad opens up with the President saying, ``I approve 
of this message.''
  The President's commercial is called ``priorities.'' It criticizes 
Senator Kerry for missing votes here. The President's advertisement 
says that ``leadership means choosing priorities.'' I could not agree 
more because Senator Kerry has chosen the correct priorities, while 
President Bush has been absent from leadership--sometimes referred to 
as AWOL.
  If you look at the priorities of these two men throughout their 
lives, you learn a lot about who was absent and who was a leader. 
Senator Kerry has never been absent, AWOL, from his responsibilities. 
The President, on the other hand, has been absent at times when it 
required leadership. During the Vietnam war, an era in which 58,000 
American soldiers lost their lives, and many more than that were 
wounded, President Bush was AWOL from leadership, AWOL from serving our 
country. He was assigned to the Texas Air National Guard, but he was 
absent from mandatory physicals, so he was grounded from flying. He was 
absent from his duties. We will never know all of the facts about the 
President's National Guard service because, today, the New York Times 
revealed that his records have been destroyed ``by mistake.''
  If you look at Senator Kerry's history, you see a totally different 
picture. You see a man who signed up not just to join the Navy, but to 
go to Vietnam to serve his country. Even though he disagreed with that 
policy, he served bravely and courageously in a leadership role. He 
commanded a swift boat and he led it bravely.
  Last week, I had the opportunity to visit with Del Sandusky, one of 
Senator Kerry's crewmen in the Navy. He tells many moving stories about 
the bravery and leadership of Senator Kerry in Vietnam.
  By the time he returned from Vietnam, Senator Kerry earned a Silver 
Star and a Bronze Star, which are high-standing awards for bravery and 
courage in serving his country; and three awards of the Purple Heart 
for his service in combat. In fact, a question has been raised about 
whether he deserved the third Purple Heart. I don't know what that 
means. Does it mean we want to measure the depth of the wound to see 
whether you pass a certain line, and the Purple Heart is one color or 
another? The military has a process, and they said he is entitled to 
three Purple Hearts. In my view, he is also entitled to the gratitude 
of this country for speaking up after he finished his service to talk 
about what might have gone wrong with the decisions in Vietnam. But he 
didn't ever relinquish or shirk his duties.
  What about the President's service at this time? They won't reveal 
the specifics. The records were destroyed, as we now know, and we will 
never find out. In this current war, as our brave soldiers are battling 
insurgents in Iraq, the President has not been honest about the true 
cost of this war. I am talking about the human cost as well as in 
monetary terms.
  The President has ordered that no cameras be allowed to film the 
flag-draped coffins of heroes returning from battle. In my view, that 
is disrespectful to these men and women who gave their lives for this 
country.

[[Page 14950]]

  I went to a funeral at Arlington Cemetery, and I also went to the 
funeral service of President Reagan. Each funeral had a similarity. 
They had an honor guard of proud service people escorting the coffin, 
doing their duty to say this Nation is grateful to these people they 
considered heroes. One act that the honor guard is required to perform 
is the folding of the flag and to finally put it into a triangle that 
can be handed over to the family. I watched at Arlington Cemetery when, 
crease by crease, each pair of service people--soldiers, marines, 
sailors--turned their part of the flag over. Finally, they folded it 
into a triangle, and the head of the honor guard walked over to the 
mother of this man who died and handed it to her. You could see the 
pride and the tears in her eyes with her family as she received this 
tribute from her country for her son's life.
  The President has ordered that no cameras be allowed to film the 
flag-draped coffins of heroes returning from battle. In my view, it is 
disrespectful. Other Presidents weren't afraid to show the American 
people images of the honor guard receiving their coffins. In fact, 
President Reagan stood on the tarmac and publicly and openly received 
the coffins of 241 marines killed by Iranian-backed terrorists in 
Beirut in 1983. President Clinton did the same for flag-draped coffins 
returning from Kosovo. But President Bush hasn't been there. He is AWOL 
from this solemn duty.
  When it comes to domestic issues, the President is AWOL from 
leadership. He was absent from funding the No Child Left Behind 
program. He signed it into law with great fanfare. But when the cameras 
were shut off, his leadership stopped. The latest budget underfunds No 
Child Left Behind by $9.4 billion. The budget also proposes the 
elimination of 38 educational programs. That is absence from 
leadership.
  When it comes to protecting the environment, the President is absent. 
He refuses to make polluters pay for Superfund cleanups. He has 
proposed an outrageous rule to allow powerplants to spew mercury into 
the air and water, which brings potential harm to our children and 
those who are on the way to being born.
  In the fight to cure disease, the President is absent. We have great 
tools to cure diseases such as Alzheimer's and juvenile diabetes at our 
disposal, and that tool is the use of embryonic stem cells, but the 
President is refusing to allow such research to proceed for political 
reasons. That is an absence of leadership.
  When it comes to our Nation's transportation needs, the President has 
been AWOL. He has threatened to veto the highway bill even though it 
enjoys overwhelming bipartisan support. That puts 1.7 million jobs at 
risk at a time when we need to create jobs.
  Thirty-eight percent of our roads are in fair or poor condition and 
28 percent of our bridges are structurally deficient. Traffic 
congestion costs Americans more than $69 billion annually in lost time 
and productivity and 5.7 billion gallons of fuel annually is wasted 
while motorists sit in traffic. This absence of leadership on 
transportation is harming American families across the country.
  The President signed a Medicare drug bill into law and the law has 
turned into a confusing nightmare for our Nation's senior citizens, who 
are barely going to see little, if any, monetary benefit. That is an 
absence of leadership. Of course, the main benefit does not kick in 
until 2006, conveniently past the next election. He does not want the 
American public to really see what is in that Medicare bill.
  On homeland security, the President talks tough, but is he really 
there? The President's budget would reduce funding for grants to local 
police, fire, and emergency medical personnel from $4.2 billion in 2004 
to $3.5 billion in 2005, more than a 15-percent decrease. Would anyone 
suggest we have less to worry about from terrorists when we just heard 
the dismal review by the Secretary of Homeland Security? The 
President's proposal will also cut first responder training by 43 
percent.
  The lack of leadership is not just at the White House. Unfortunately, 
my Republican colleagues in the Congress almost always march in 
lockstep with the White House, even at the peril of their constituents. 
This blind allegiance to the White House is having devastating effects. 
We have seen our budget surplus turn into deficits as far as the eye 
can see.
  In Iraq, we bought the White House line and ignored military leaders. 
Look at the case of GEN Eric Shinseki, who said we need 300,000 troops 
in Iraq to do the job. He was right, but he was fired for telling the 
truth. We have recently heard from one of the leading Army generals who 
said our forces are too thin, and as a result of that, it is fair to 
say we have seen terrible casualties--879 Americans killed in Iraq, 
over 5,000 injured. If we had listened to General Shinseki and other 
military experts rather than the White House, perhaps those numbers 
would be less.
  When the President said to the Congress, do not let Medicare 
negotiate for drug prices, we should have said: Too bad. Prices are out 
of control. We see that in the newspapers regularly now. We need to do 
this. Instead, the Republican majority said, ``yes, sir,'' and followed 
the White House's orders, and drug prices keep soaring.
  I say enough is enough. We are a coequal branch of the Government. 
Let us act like it. My Republican colleagues should stand up to the 
President when they think he is wrong.
  Senator Kerry is on a noble mission to change the direction of this 
country for the better. In doing so, he is leading us down a path 
toward a stronger America, and I can think of no better reason to 
pursue that goal with every minute of time, with every ounce of effort, 
with every bit of intellect he can muster. We wish him good health and 
success, to lift our country out of the misery of worry about their 
children, their jobs, their parents, and their Nation. We wish Senator 
Kerry Godspeed and hardly think of him as being AWOL. His record 
disproves any notion of that.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cochran). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________