Reagan Forum - Featuring Mr. Tony Snow (October 26, 2007)

Thank you. I can’t tell you how honored and delighted I am to be speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The mere mention of President Reagan’s name produces a telling reaction among most Americans. They’ll give you a smile, both happy and wistful, and then they’ll get a sort of faraway look. They’ll take a moment to remember not just a president, but someone who loomed larger than those around him. They’ll see a man, tall and confident, who took office in difficult and demoralized times, and who gently reminded us how great this country is and how great we are. He helped us recover our sense of self, restore our sense of mission. While Communists snarled, he responded with an iron fist and a happy heart. And when we, the people, won the long war against totalitarianism, he gave us the credit.

Today, we find ourselves in a peculiar and baffling political age. Pessimism, fear and loathing flourish despite a glut of reasons for good cheer. Tonight, I will take on that chic cynicism and make the case for a politics of optimism. I’ll explain why optimism is the most realistic way to think about ourselves, our country and our future– and why doomsaying is an unrealistic cop-out.

Our major political debates always revolve around one concept: freedom. Freedom makes possible our other great animating principles – justice, equality before the law, individual dignity. But our confidence in freedom rests on something even more fundamental – our firm knowledge that if you leave people to their own devices – protected by sensible laws and united by bonds of trust – they’ll do what comes naturally. They’ll work hard for themselves and those they love. They’ll put in extra hours to save for that kitchen renovation, or a kid’s college education – or maybe even a set of golf clubs. They don’t think of themselves as great movers and shakers, but they are. Their labors help push our society and culture upward and forward.

So the defining question for America – in any age and circumstance – is whether our Constitution’s framers were right to have such faith in people’s capacity to make good use of freedom. And that is the question upon which my remarks hinge tonight.

Freedom was a radical idea when America was young; it remains radical today because it invokes the name of a Creator, who ensures a proper equality between human beings, and because it offers no guarantees. Freedom is a plunge into the wild unknown; it creates the possibility of surprise – of the unexpected breakthrough, the shocking new trend, of Woodstock and the man on the moon all in the same summer. To choose freedom is not to choose a neatly scripted outcome; it is to choose a way of life.

But some people distrust uncertainty. They want things determined down to the tiniest detail. These people prefer government planning to free enterprise because they think it makes life more certain and secure. And therein lies the nub of our present-day political disputes. The difference between a planned society and a free culture marks the boundary between present-day liberalism and conservatism, between the politics of pessimism and the politics of optimism.

Pessimists see in a freer America a place of avarice, greed and failure. They are bearish on people, but bullish on government. As I shall demonstrate, their declarations of gloom are wrong – toweringly, majestically, invariably wrong.

Consider some examples of this pessimistic impulse in action. First, this from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: “This is the worst economy since the Great Depression.”

Really! The economy has expanded for 23 consecutive quarters, and soon will hit the 6-year mark. Employment has increased for 49 consecutive months, a new record. The Dow has set new peaks repeatedly during the last year; home ownership has hit all-time highs; more Americans hold jobs than ever before, and national wealth is soaring. Middle-class wages are high and rising. The unemployment rate is lower than the Clinton-era average, the growth rate higher, and income equality greater.

All this has happened despite a series of shocks that could have brought us to ruin. September 11th inflicted enormous damage on the economy – perhaps a trillion dollars’ worth. Then came the Enron/corporate management scandals. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq followed, costing hundreds of billions. We’ve suffered through the costliest natural disaster in history – Hurricane Katrina – along with an oil shock that has pushed oil prices past $80 a barrel, and mortgage problems that have unsettled financial markets. Did I also mention that we’re also undergoing a wrenching transformation from a manufacturing society to an information society?

Considering the hurdles we have faced over the last seven years, the economic story is not one of failure, but of triumph. Workers didn’t fall victim to fear after September 11. In a delicious and typical act of defiance, we brushed ourselves off and went back to our jobs. By being ourselves, we made our mark in an increasingly competitive and often dangerous world.

Sen. Clinton isn’t alone in pushing pessimism. Perhaps you have heard about the recent CNN poll that asked whether Americans considered themselves in a recession. Not surprisingly, 46 percent of respondents said yes.

I’m less surprised by the answer than I am by the question. It’s completely manufactured. It invites people to contemplate a proposition that not only isn’t true – but isn’t even close to true. We are not in a recession, but in one of the longest recoveries in our history. The economy grew3.8 percent last quarter – an astounding rate for the sixth year of a recovery – and most observers expect similar growth this quarter. And yet despite all the evidence and all the good news, a media organization has invited people to put on dark-colored glasses, to describe success as failure. It then reported the survey result as a news item, to insinuate that effective conservative economic policies have failed.

Or what about the environment? Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have received a Nobel Prize for warning that the sky is falling. The former Vice President has begun a second career as a chiliast – that’s a fancy word for an unglued alarmist who believes the world is coming to an end – warning that the United States is leading the world over the precipice.

Another entrant in the Dare to Be Dire competition is renowned climatologist Leonardo diCaprio, who has produced a film based on the presumption that the world is about to end right now. Says diCaprio: “I want the public to be very scared by what they see. I want them to see a very bleak future.”

If that doesn’t express the basic tenets of the politics of pessimism, nothing does: If you can’t persuade ‘em, scare ‘em!

Al Gore’s movie alleges that oceans will rise 20 feet, that polar bears are becoming extinct, that the temperature will soar, that carbon dioxide levels have risen drastically, and so on. Well: false, false, false and false. You may have heard that an United Kingdom judge has ruled that the Nobel laureate’s film includes at least nine major whoppers – which must be corrected onscreen!

But what about the nation’s environmental record? It’s good. The United States has the least regulated economy in terms of environmental regulations, but it also has the best record of environmental improvement – the best water and air in the industrialized world, and one of the best in cutting industrial emissions. And we did it while building a booming economy.

Next up, Iraq. Harry Reid regularly calls the war a disaster. He has said we have lost, that the mission’s a failure. In a letter written with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he argued at the outset of the surge that “the escalation has failed to produce the intended results. The increase in U.S. forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.” The two probably should have withheld judgment until the troops actually got deployed. But they couldn’t. Their pessimism, an essential element in their depictions of Iraq, wouldn’t let them.

Now, it’s clear they were wrong. The surge is working, and it’s animating the Iraqis. Sunnis in Anbar province have declared war on Al Qaeda and crushed it. The most dangerous Iraqi province – a vast area that stretches from outer Baghdad to the Syrian border – has become one of the safest. Meanwhile, Shi’a have turned against the Jaish al Mahdi – the militia that conducted ethnic-cleansing operations in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Iraqis, while eager for the United States to complete its operations in Iraq, also have become grateful and they’re expressing their appreciation by going full bore after the terrorists – getting information, conducting operations, shattering terror cells, uncovering weapons, intercepting the flow of bombs and money….

Nope: Voters in France Germany have elected strongly pro-American successors to Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac, and Europeans have begun to acknowledge not just the dangers of the terror network but also the necessity of striking killers before they can wreak havoc.

If you want to know how people really think about us, don’t listen to what they say, especially when they’re hot-dogging during political campaigns. Watch what they do.

No, we do. Who’s the first on the scene when Mother Nature unleashes tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes or other natural disasters? We are. Ask the Iranians, whom we helped several years ago after a string of devastating earthquakes killed tens of thousands.

I hope you get the idea on pessimism: It’s deeply rooted, and utterly resistant to fact. Now, you might want to attribute all this naysaying to garden-variety politics – Democrats want to paint the world as a big mess because they want to place one of their own in the White House. But that’s not the case.

For dyed-in-the-wool leftists, pessimism is encoded in the DNA. They have abandoned the cheerier, more resolute liberalism practiced by FDR, JFK and MLK. Think about it: The Old Left went to war on behalf of freedom, and fought with ferocity and determination. The Old Left displayed unprecedented generosity in victory – transforming Germany and Japan from historic enemies into close and vital allies. They didn’t ignore the dangers of communism; they took it on. They praised America without reserve. And in the case of the civil-rights movement, they knew that people of all colors and backgrounds would join them if they decided to stand tough and tall against segregation and racism – not because of government edicts, but because of the calling of caring hearts. John F. Kennedy cut taxes and stood up to Khrushchev. You will find no such determination or optimism among today’s New Left.

Barack Obama recently declared that he would stop wearing a flag pin on his lapel because he didn’t like what it stood for. I may have paraphrased a little harshly – he said he didn’t like what the people who wear the flag stand for. Robert Redford meanwhile has produced an anti-war movie, whose promotional material proclaims: “The people who started this aren’t the problem. We are.”

The old, pro-freedom, optimistic liberalism has given way to a big government variant that is gloomier and enormously expensive. It’s also a fraud.

The big-spending ideology dangles a tantalizing proposition before us: Give me your freedom (and your money) and I’ll make your problems go away. I’ll make your health care cheaper and better; I’ll guarantee your pension; I’ll raise your salary; I’ll make sure you earn more money; I’ll make your kids smarter. If you want, I’ll even beat up on corporations and rich people.

A lot of people take the bait without realizing they’ve been insulted. After all, when somebody asks you to trade in your earnings for security, they’re saying you can’t handle the big stuff, that you need to hand it over to someone who’s competent – who can tell you what to do. That last part is crucial: As part of the bargain, you have to take orders.

In normal life, when somebody says, “Sign over your earnings and I’ll take care of everything,” it’s called a scam.

When they say, “Give me your money or else” – as the government does, it’s called a stick-up.

But in the world of pessimistic liberalism, it’s called “meeting unmet needs” – theirs!

This kind of liberalism has an unbroken record of failure. Every major program begins with a big promise and a modest price tag, and ends with negligible results and gigantic budgets.

Consider a topic certain to loom large in next year’s presidential contest: health care. Senator Clinton wants to socialize medicine. She’ll say she wants to make health care more affordable and available by putting the government in charge of designing and operating a new system. But recall what I mentioned earlier: The pitch begins with the big, too-good-be-true promise, and ends with coercion. The 1994 ClintonCare proposals, you may recall, ensured universal participation in a government health-care plan by imposing $50,000 fines on people who dared to go out and find their own doctors.

We have an amazing health-care system, driven by private companies that are producing cures to an incredible array of diseases and disabilities. Trust me, I’ve got a vested interest in this stuff.

But everyone in that system – including groups that often are at each other’s throats– agree on one thing: Uncle Sam is their biggest nuisance.

The government buries them in paperwork, which they cannot shirk due to the fact that the feds have become the number one source of health care funding. I once had an internal medicine doctor – an old friend of mine – set up a little demonstration in his office. He had on the corner of his desk a huge stack of paper. “Do you know what this is?” he asked. “It’s the insurance and government forms I’ve gotten just for today.” He and guys like him waste an enormous amount of time walking through the bureaucratic maze – time that could be devoted to what he really wants to do, which is to heal others.

Then, to add insult to injury, Uncle Sam tells these healers how to do their business –often insisting upon clumsy, inefficient and inflexible ways of delivering care.

You’re not going to improve our medical system by pumping more money and power into the biggest obstacle to progress. Government-centered solutions are doomed to fail because they’re just not smart. They depend on a handful of experts, while private markets harness the genius of thousands if not millions of interested parties, from venture capitalists to practitioners to consumers to adventurous nerds operating out of their parents’ garages.

The British can tell you all about it. If you’re a Brit with a bad heart, you’d better be young and relatively strong, because you’re not going to get critical treatment for years. If you have cancer, pray. And if you have rotten teeth, do what an increasing number of our friends across the pond are doing: Get your pliers and yank them out. I am not making this up.

Compare and contrast private versus government-run consumerism: When we think of the computer industry – one of the most vigorous and competitive in the private marketplace – we think of new products every week – cheaper, more powerful, more mind-blowing. When we think of health care, we think of getting stuck in waiting rooms along with a blaring TV, old magazines and papers, and wheezing patients who look as if they had been sitting around for a week.

Is it not bizarre that the only major industry in this country that doesn’t make full use of the free market’s surging drive, ambition and genius is the one that deals with life and death?

And as for the idea that government expenditure automatically bespeaks compassion, let me ask you a question based on your own personal experience. When was the last time you walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles …. And felt the love?

This is what I meant when I described the unbroken record of liberal failure. If you don’t trust in the genius of free people, you get inferior service.

Practitioners of pessimism also consider America incompetent on the global stage.

On the economy, protectionists don’t believe American workers – the most productive in the world – can cut it. So they reject free trade agreements, including four the president has proposed with friendly nations – Colombia, Panama, Peru and South Korea.

The case of Colombia is particularly galling, since members of Congress are holding it up to scold Colombian President Uribe, who has placed his life on the line and become our most valuable ally in fighting narco-traffickers. When we show the back of our hand to such men, we help their enemies, including Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

We also hurt ourselves. Exports now constitute the most important element in our economic growth. Shut down trade, and you shut down the economy.

And of course, there’s the war. Democratic leaders made a fateful decision three years ago. They chose to break with the president, even though many supported the war, because they saw the potential for political gain. This led them to ignore the successes of our troops – to overlook the generosity and heroism embedded in the American spirit – and craft a narrative that sought to portray everything as a “dismal failure.”

Remember Dick Durbin’s description of Guantanamo guards? He described interrogation methods as equivalent to what “must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime – Pol Pot or others – that had no concern for human beings.”

These would be the same prisoners who receive Korans and prayer mats, get meals that cost more to prepare than the ones given the troops who guard them, whose interrogations are overseen by experts to ensure nobody abuses the terrorists, and whose conditions are reviewed regularly by the International Committee of the Red Cross? That’s Stalinism? Are you kidding? There literally have been cases of prisoners who have asked to stay because the conditions in Gitmo are better than what they had experienced back home!

Or what about the case of Scott Thomas Beauchamp? Beauchamp was an anti-war activist who enlisted in the military and headed to the theater of battle. From there, he wrote a series of dispatches for The New Republic Magazine. He alleged that U.S. soldiers in Kuwait openly mocked a woman whose face had been grossly disfigured in the war; that drivers of Bradley fighting vehicles fought off boredom by tracking down, shooting and crushing dogs in the street; that U-S forces jokingly desecrated the skulls of children whose remains had been uncovered at a so-called “Saddam-era dumping ground.” In other words, he painted a picture of our troops as depraved, cynical and murderous – “Apocalypse Now” meets “A Clockwork Orange.”

Beauchamp, who harbored ambitions of becoming the next Hemmingway, was hailed as one by the left. Like Hemmingway, he specialized in fiction. It appears he made the stuff up. All of it.

The episode, including a continuing cover up by The New Republic, shows that many anti-war pessimists don’t have a beef just with Bush administration Pentagon planners. They despise the troops, too.

Pete Pace, the recently retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was effectively accused of treason by Democrats; Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of our Iraqi military strategy, was called a betrayer of the American people and way of life. Remember the General Betray-us ad produced by MoveOn.org – and run at a discounted price by the New York Times?

Naturally, the pessimists also scowl at the notion that freedom can transform people and nations. They consider the Iraqis incapable of self-government; U.S. troops incapable of training Iraqi soldiers to acceptable standards; and U.S. civilian advisers incapable of helping Iraqis build such fundamental institutions as schools, town halls, and a court system.

They began by predicting 25,000 combat deaths during the initial conflict. Baghdad fell in 3-1/2 weeks.

They predicted an angry uprising in the Arab street. It didn’t happen. The Arab Street distrusts bin Laden, fears Iran – and is waiting to see if the Americans finish the job.

And they predicted that Americans would become the object of Iraqi ire. As even the mainstream media now are reporting, Americans have become the objects of Iraqi ardor.

The fighting is far from over, but if one were to ask right now if Usama bin Laden were better off today than he was in 2001, the answer would be no. Did you see that he released a tape last week, apologizing because his people had beheaded so many innocents. “Sorry!”

If one were to ask if al Qaeda were better off than it was just a year ago, the answer would be no as well. The Iraqis are in the process of decimating Al Qaeda in Iraq.

And this brings me to the core of my argument. The debate over optimism versus pessimism is a debate about who we are, what kind of people we are – what we believe, what we do, what we feel, and how we make ourselves known in the world.

To be an American is to be a witness to wonder – and a participant. We live in a society that churns with restless, unstoppable, creative energy. We innovate as naturally as we breathe. Sure, some novelties might make us want to bang our heads against a wall – I’m thinking of video games and anything having to do with Britney Spears – but they also attest to our freewheeling vitality.

To be an American also is to understand the power of faith. No nation is as religiously observant, and none has such a profound belief in higher powers and higher truth. This produces the conviction that our rights and dignity are literally untouchable because they didn’t come from some guy in Washington; they came from the Guy Upstairs – the Almighty.

This belief courses through the Declaration of Independence – and has strengthened each generation of Americans. Today, as fires ebb in California, more than a few people are whispering words of thanks to God. And that impulse – the impulse to search for timeless moral truths instead of cheap expedient excuses – shows that our spiritual yearnings are every bit as powerful and palpable as our economic ambitions.

Our faith also explains our unprecedented decency. We’re the kindest people on earth, and we like it that way.

I’m willing to bet every person in this room has personal experience with this phenomenon – of people who showed up at our doorstep and did something decent and kind at just the right moment, in just the right way.

We in the Snow household are the masters of disaster in our neighborhood. Six years ago, we decided to remodel our house. It was supposed to take eight months; it took two years. Finally, on the day they finished the job, the house caught on fire. We had to gut the house and start over.

But as we were trying to adjust to the whole thing, people came out of nowhere to help, unbidden. And you never knew who would show up. Sometimes, the least likely people – folks you barely knew – would appear and do the most amazing things.

The same has happened during my bout with cancer. I have been the recipient not just of small acts of kindness, but also of prayers. I don’t know how anybody goes through something like cancer without faith. I know I couldn’t. But I can tell you, there have been days when other people’s love and prayers have made a difference. As I wrote in Christianity Today, it’s as if thousands and thousands of people had lifted me on their shoulders, made me weightless, carried off the concerns of this world. I can’t describe what it’s like to realize that of 6 billion people on this planet, strangers singled me out in their private conversations with God. How cool is that?

But that just demonstrates the distinctive American drive to do good things for others. People out there just want an excuse to help someone else. I’ll bet that in a time of illness, bereavement, crisis or loss each of you have felt the special love Americans show for each other.

We export that selflessness to every land afflicted by disease, every people stunned by hardship, every culture yearning to breathe free. Today, you can find Americans leading the effort to fight AIDS in Africa, to stop the killing in Darfur, to feed the hungry around the world, to build homes for the homeless, and hope for the hopeless. We’re there: healing, teaching, building, planting, assisting – and we’re asking nothing in return.

Of course, we’re fighting, too. Just about a year ago, a young man wrote to friends about why he had decided to leave college and enlist in the military -- in his words, “to go to Iraq.”

He knew what he was getting into. He described the war as a “staging ground for one of the largest transformations of power and ideology the Middle East has experienced since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire,” and as a cesspool of “interregional hatred and genocide.

The young lieutenant couldn’t look the other way as fellow human beings suffered under what he called “the most hideous state apparatuses and conditions.” He dismissed retreatists and defeatists, and praised “19 year old soldiers from the Midwest who have never touched a college campus or a protest, who have done more (than antiwar protesters) to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and individual rights by placing themselves between Iraqi voting lines and homicidal religious fanatics.”

Shortly before leaving, he left an online note. “Don’t forget,” he begged, “that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans will always have a responsibility to the oppressed.”

He added: “Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction. So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include, “Good luck.”

What an amazing writer. So off he went, and guess what he found? Fulfillment. Friendship. Support. Gratitude. He quoted one local on the difference between a terrorist and an American: “They get paid to take life – to murder – and you get paid to save life.” He added: “He looked at me in such a way that made me feel like he was looking through me; into all the moral insecurity that living in a free nation will instill in you.”

Note: In typical American fashion, he’s serving, but he’s also looking around, taking in the details, asking questions. Like tens of thousands there today, he toiled amid the wreckage of morality and hope, but the experience merely deepened his sense of determination. I don’t know if you realize this, but the people most likely to re-enlist are the ones doing combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. They not only appreciate the dangers of war; they also see themselves as part of something very special, a unique moment in history. They see freedom beginning to bloom, like the fist crocus of spring, and it inspires them.

Our guy wrote a series of eloquent reminders that freedom is the gift we give one another by virtue of believing in the untouchable dignity of every other person. It is a gift of love.

As his deployment proceeded, he became more excited about what was going on. He even got promoted to a leadership position. One day he wrote home: “All is well. More war stories than I can fit in this e-mail. Having the time of my life!” Exclamation point.

Just a few weeks before, he had told his kid brother, “I know it is hard for you, knowing that I am over here in danger, but never forget that I came here on behalf of the countless brothers who were torn apart by the savage exploits of this region’s tyrants.”

Let me read one last thing from this amazing man’s writings: This, to his wife: “One thing I have learned about myself since I’ve been out here is that everything I professed to you about what I want for the world and what I am willing to do to achieve it was true … My desire to ‘save the world’ is really just an extension of trying to make a world fit for you.”

That last remark absolutely nailed it. It identified Mark Daily the core feature of the politics of optimism. It’s not cockiness. It’s not stubbornness. It’s not arrogance. It’s not wealth, or power, or influence. It is love – the most powerful, intimate, profound of all our emotions, the one that impels us to attempt the impossible, and to push ourselves toward peaks that seem unattainable. Love of liberty. Love of country. Love of God, and Family, and Friends.

To love is to believe in others, to celebrate them, to wish them well, and to try as best we can to clear away the obstacles to unhappiness.

This view of things may not be fashionable in elite circles – remember how they recoiled in horror when President Reagan talked confidently of America’s global destiny or sweetly about a shining city on a hill? But it does have one thing going for it. This kind of optimism is true, and it is rooted in our very souls.

Think about how conservative policies express this emotion. Tax cuts are a way of saying: We believe in you. We’re going to make sure that when you work hard, you’ll get your reward. You’ll save and invest and spend – and lift us up in the process.

Welfare reform said to the poor: We will eliminate the chains of the old ways. We will liberate you from laws that punished having a job, staying married, owning a home. We will encourage you. And people who previously hadn’t work went out and got jobs. And millions soon entered the fast-flowing mainstream of our economy.

Free-market environmentalism encourages entrepreneurs to get rich finding cheap and effective ways to clean up our water and air. It says: You can do it! Big government environmentalism, in contrast, demands that businesses go broke implementing federal orders.

The captive nations of the mid-20th Century stand free today because pivotal American presidents understood the necessity of using American power to fight the oppressor and aid the oppressed. They believed in the morality of fighting evil. They cherished the humility of American ambitions. Deep inside, the whole world knows that we come to liberate, not subjugate.

Review world history since America’s founding, and you will find continual support for my contention that free nations, built upon a solid faith in their people, invariably triumph over despotic regimes, and that people-oriented policies inevitably outperform government-centered policies. That’s optimism – and it’s realism.

Ronald Reagan understood this, and he also understood that it had broad appeal. He built a coalition of Democrats and Republicans united not only by policies, but by a feeling – the one we all experienced right after the September 11 attacks.

Remember how you felt when you hear about the strikes, when you first saw the pictures of the Twin Towers collapsing upon themselves? Partisanship vanished. We all thought about the things we might lose – and in a flash, we realized just how wonderful this country is, how much our freedoms mean. This realization came instantly, without prompting. No government official had to preach or intervene. The American heart just took over. You may recall that its effects were so profound that highway patrol officers reported an immediate albeit temporary halt in road rage incidents. Crime plunged in Washington and New York.

You discover your character in the hard times, and on September 11, we found ours. I want you to remember that every time you see what’s going on in Washington. Know that in every American heart burns an ember – that’s probably the wrong term to use here, isn’t it – there burns in our heart a conviction powerful enough to inspire us to overcome everything, and close enough to our hearts that it can bring us to tears of appreciation and defiance.

That feeling fled Washington a long time ago, and as a result our politics are a mess. Democratic leaders have gone pure negative against the president, in language more direct and personal than I have ever seen. The president has not responded in kind.

Still, pessimism rages. The Democratic Congress hasn’t passed a single appropriations bill, is threatening to shut things down if the president doesn’t bust the budget, and has started to talk openly of huge tax hikes – Charlie Rangel has proposed a trillion dollars in new taxes – and his colleagues want vast new federal programs in child care and medicine.

Dick Morris predicts that with a Democratic President, Congress would raise taxes throughout the economy – hiking individual rates, capital gains rates, inheritance taxes, energy taxes, you name it. They just cannot help themselves! Or, to paraphrase a great American: There they go again.

I want to be careful here: I think this behavior appalls a lot of Democrats. In fact, I know it does. They don’t like to see their leaders behave as if in a sandbox. They want to see things get done, and they want the haters and shriekers in the party to put a sock in it.

The pessimism bug has bitten some Republicans, too. Many younger members of the party, having no prior experience as members of a legislative minority or contact with the great challenges of the Cold War, lack the ideological fire of the Reagan Revolutionaries. A good many oppose free trade, support increasing government’s ability to dictate the future direction of the health-care system, and have become alarmists about the war – in some cases, despite direct personal experience to the contrary.

The conservative movement, such as it is, has lost its self confidence because some of the party’s leaders abandoned core principles – including those that lie at the core of a politics of optimism. These include smaller government, lower taxes, and a fervent commitment to protecting the dignity of life and extending the blessings of liberty to all. Even though the GOP held the line on spending (contrary to popular opinion), its leadership refused to hold the line on earmarks and special interest pork. Remember when Rep. Mike Pence got taken to the woodshed because he said what all of us surely consider worthy and true – that legislators shouldn’t violate the public trust by sneaking billions of dollars of pork into federal budgets and trying surreptitiously to finance bridges to nowhere?

We have arrived at a moment of incredible opportunity. The political field – including the presidential campaign – is wide open to the first politician who steps out of the day-to-day ooze of campaigning and takes a peek from the Mountaintop. He or she would see that we live in times of amazing triumph and achievement. We can overcome the challenges that confront us, and we can serve as a light to the world.

But first, we’ve got to remember who we are. We’re the ones who, after September 11, rushed to the still smoldering ruins of the trade towers, and in the midst of the horror looked around and saw friends and neighbors whose ancestors came from every corner of the globe. Even as we pulled remains from the steaming rubble, we paused to send a message. We shouted “USA! USA! USA!” – to the amazement of an admiring world.

Don’t forget these things. And don’t forget our deep joy in the country we love.

You feel uneasy about politics today because it has become weirdly disconnected from our lives and actual experience. It has become too glum. Politicians need to stop pounding each other long enough to think of us, our families, our neighbors our friends – and about the values, dreams, commitments and challenges we all share.

Democrats and Republicans should understand that disagreements aren’t causes to declare war with each other; they’re signs of life in our democracy. It’s not only acceptable but desirable to have friends who will challenge us, disagree with us, push us to sharpen our ideas, to keep the good ones and discard the bad. If Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan could be civil, why can’t Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi take up the hand that has been extended to them?

I know a lot of people have declared conservatism dead as far as the election next year. But we’ve heard these things before. And in politics, as in everything else, the unexpected is the rule rather than the exception. In 1980 Bob Strauss, then head of the Democratic National Committee, positively celebrated the impeding nomination of Ronald Reagan. “Finally,” he told his staff, “those guys have nominated an SOB we can beat!” To those who think they’ve got next year’s election in the bag, I can only say: Don’t get too cocky.

Instead, be the first one at the next revolution. Revive a politics of optimism rooted in the truest, most important axiom of political life: Freedom works. Our fidelity to this principle has made us a shining city on a hill, the hope of the world.

That is what we were in 1789, when we were a baby nation; what we are in 2007, as the global superpower; and what we shall be in ages to come. Pessimists are agnostic about America, but we needn’t be. Every day ought to provide a fresh cause for giving thanks, for pushing our freedoms to the limit for doing something – even a tiny little act of kindness – to express our love of this land of freedom, the nation of dreams come true.

To: mupcat; Inspectorette; MrsPatriot; Anita1; SnarlinCubBear; BoxerDawgs; Merlinator; barker; ...

2 posted on 11/12/2007 5:06:20 AM PST by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for Tony and Jill Snow and their family.)

Well, done, oh loyal SnowFlake. Thank you for posting the words [a lot of words!] of Tony. We can read and savor them through out the day. I might reach the end by dinner.

4 posted on 11/12/2007 5:28:05 AM PST by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for Tony and Jill Snow and their family.)

Thanks for posting this! I was shocked to find out (the day AFTER - sigh) that Tony had been at the Reagan Library, right down the road. Glad that it was a successful sold-out event, and I hope he comes back here soon.

Thank you, Moonmad27! Who knows who might be lurking on FR, reading this thread?

;-)

6 posted on 11/12/2007 5:33:53 AM PST by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for Tony and Jill Snow and their family.)

:-) Thanks, Bahbah! I thought so too, and I read it in the wee hours this morning.

8 posted on 11/12/2007 5:48:02 AM PST by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for Tony and Jill Snow and their family.)

Save, Mrs. FOX has provided me breakfast; I have my trusty coffee mug, filled to the brim, at my side; I am ready to read!

Someday, I hope to visit the Reagan library. When the scenery was shown, during Pres. Reagan’s funeral, it was beautiful. You are lucky to be able to call that area home.

Isn’t it? I am still enjoying reading it.

Thanks for your support of Tony’s speech, LucyJo!

12 posted on 11/12/2007 6:27:52 AM PST by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for Tony and Jill Snow and their family.)

:-) LOL

As long as you don’t use the “mug holder” on the computer ;-)

13 posted on 11/12/2007 6:29:32 AM PST by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for Tony and Jill Snow and their family.)

Good morning, Bahbah. The breath of Tony's talk is awesome. I think that since Tony left the Press Secretary job, and the responsibility of being the spokesman for the White House to the world, his writing has blossomed. Now that he doesn't have to worry about the nuance and parsing of every word he writes, or speaks, he can freely write like the talented thinker we remember from his reign as Head SnowFlake.

his writing has blossomed

I think this is one of the best things I have ever read.

Save, aren't coffee stains on the computer desk sort of a badge of courage among the pajama posters?

I’m passing it along to others, and I’m printing it out for some school kids that I know.

Is there any wonder we love Tony Snow?

LOL

No stains— the counter is formica.

This is why I am not allowed coffee while traveling. :D

18 posted on 11/12/2007 6:45:52 AM PST by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for Tony and Jill Snow and their family.)

Thanks for sharing it, LucyJo! :-)

19 posted on 11/12/2007 6:46:16 AM PST by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for Tony and Jill Snow and their family.)

So now Tony is back to being a Conservative instead of a shill for illegal immigration? I always admired him until he got sucked into the Washington culture and became another enabler. IMHO he ranks with Donna Shalala as people who most abandoned their core principles in order to remain in the corridors of power. Sorry.

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