Posted on 04/03/2004 8:26:58 AM PST by XHogPilot
Edited on 04/23/2004 12:06:42 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Race to the Top Welfare Reform Works. Ted Kennedy Wants to Kill It.
Government "reform" rarely works, as these columns often point out. But eight years after Congress ended welfare as a federal entitlement, the evidence is undeniable that this experiment in conservative social policy is a historic success. The only problem is that some people still won't forgive the reformers for being right.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
How do you spell disengenuous?
Worth repeating until it finally becomes the epitaph of the socialist engineers. This same standard of accountability needs to be applied to every one of the doomsayers who equate public expenditure with social conscience.
Far from shrinking from this debate, they (the GOP) should herald welfare reform as the greatest advance for America's poor since the rise of capitalism.
A national disgrace that keeps getting re-elected by the somewhat less than enlightened voters of Massachusetts. And who'd hire that human rum blossom by now, unless they're doing another sequel to "Free Willie"?
Here is the relevant passage from the Congressional Record:
(Links open pdfs in new windows.)
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD —SENATE S3267 March 29, 2004
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD —SENATE S3268 March 29, 2004
I am going to speak to one other issue, and then I see others who want to address the Senate. I will then yield the floor.
WHITE HOUSE RESPONSIVENESS TO THE 9/11 COMMISSION
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in my lifetime, there have been national catastrophes of such magnitude that they are seared in the collective American memory forever. In each case, the Nation was able to draw on the strength of its institutions and its leaders to carry on with the strong support of our citizens. The attack on Pearl Harbor, for example, plunged us into war, but unified us as a people, and brought out the best in our elected leaders.
In Watergate, on the other hand, the integrity of our most basic institutions was threatened by an executive run amok. But the legislative branch, acting on a bipartisan basis, and the judicial branch, led by a unanimous Supreme Court, vindicated the Framers' trust that a nation based on checks and balances and the separation of powers could survive one branch's abuse of power.
Two and a half years ago we suffered another tragedy of historic dimensions. In one brief morning nearly 3,000 of our people were killed by an enemy who had openly declared war against us, had already struck at us in a variety of forms and places at home and abroad, and had put our government, if not our people, on notice that they would strike again.
The families and friends of the dead and injured were not the only victims. We all suffered. Our peace of mind suffered; our trust in our surroundings suffered; our liberty to move freely around the Nation and the world suffered. And our confidence in the public institutions which protect and defend us suffered.
The quality and integrity of our response as a Nation and as individuals will determine how history views us as defenders of America's ideals. Can we restore security without sacrificing liberty? Can we identify and fill the gaps in our defense against known and unknown enemies, without reducing the essential quality of life and freedom in our Nation?
We in Congress have begun to answer those questions, and the 9/11 Commission is a key element of our answer. Over the initial objections of the executive branch, and with the help and support of the victims' families, we
[Page: S3268] GPO's PDF
This Commission is as eminent and experienced a body as anyone could hope for. Some have complained that it is too ``establishment.''
It includes two former Republican governors, a former Republican Senator, a former Republican Secretary of the Navy, a former Reagan White House Counsel, a Navy veteran who was both a governor and Senator, a former General Counsel of the Department of Defense and Deputy Attorney General who sits on a CIA advisory Committee, a former chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, a former member of the House Intelligence committee, and a former Watergate investigator now at a distinguished law firm. Its executive director served on the National Security Council under former President Bush and on the transition team for the current President Bush.
The Commission is entitled to respect and cooperation from everyone it deals with in all parts of the Government, especially the White House.
The Commission has properly chosen to operate in public to the fullest extent possible. Secrecy will only sow seeds of suspicion and dilute the Nation's confidence in its independence and its conclusions. It has done nothing to suggest to anyone that it will not be fair and just and sensitive to the needs of the individuals and institutions it deals with. On the other hand it is operating on an extremely tight, Congressionally mandated, time schedule.
It does not have the time or the inclination, and should not have the need, to fight in the courts of law or in the court of public opinion to obtain the information it deserves and the public deserves.
Thus the current controversy over the testimony of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice can and should be resolved quickly. The public and the Congress should not stand for anything less than full and prompt cooperation from the White House. For a national tragedy of these proportions, the buck stops at the White House. Three thousand people died on our shores and on their watch. There should not be the slightest question that any White House staff member asked by the Commission to testify under oath and in public must do so.
As Colin Powell said yesterday, the presumption must be that everything be done in the open, so that sunshine can infuse the process.
It is not a question of law; the law fully permits members of the White House staff to testify.
It is not a question of precedent. As former Navy Secretary Lehman, a Commission member, said yesterday, many previous Presidents have permitted such testimony on important matters, and the importance of the issue here makes clear that this President should do the same. Surely, 9/11 is more important than Richard Kleindienst's confirmation, Billy Carter's activities, or who said what to whom about an Arkansas bank.
Yet in those cases, and many others, top White House officials testified in public and under oath.
It is not a question of principle. That line was crossed in this case when the National Security Adviser went before the Commission in secret. If the White House genuinely believes that the Commission is a creation of the legislature, she has already subjected herself to the legislature's inquiries.
As Secretary Lehman has said, it is ``self-defeating'' for the White House to refuse to allow Condoleezza Rice to testify fully in public. That course leads to suspicion that they have something to hide.
Mr. Lehman says there is no smoking gun in what she has said in secret, so unless the White House is afraid she may say something different in public under oath, why are they holding her back?
It is an insult to Ms. Rice to deny her the chance she says she wants, to testify in public. She has proven herself an articulate spokesperson for the President over the past 3 years. Unless the White House fears that she will disclose some dire secret, she should be free to respond in public to the Commission's questions, as she has responded on numerous occasions in press interviews in recent days. Television interviews are no substitute for answering the Commission's questions under oath.
There need be no compromise of executive privilege if she testifies, If she is asked a question that she thinks the President, rather than she, should answer, she can and will say so, and leave it to him to do. But otherwise, as Colin Powell also said yesterday, the presumption ought to be for sunshine, openness, light.
The Commission has also asked unanimously for an appearance by the President and Vice President in public under oath. They refused and offered in essence to meet in private for a brief conversation with the Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission. The public outcry at that minimal proposal led the White House to suggest some flexibility on the time, but not on anything else.
The President faces a difficult decision about whether to testify in public and under oath. He was our leader when 9/11 occurred. That may well turn out to be a benefit to him in the months to come, but with that benefit goes a heavy burden. It is his responsibility to answer questions that only he can answer, admit failings if there were failings, apologize if apology is called for, and reassure us all that whatever was broken has been fixed. It will take courage and leadership for him to step forward, face the Commission, and risk the consequences.
I urge President Bush, as the Nation focuses on the question of his own appearance, to remember the example of President Gerald Ford.
One of the most difficult decisions he made as President was to pardon President Nixon. President Ford had the courage to defend that decision under oath and in public before a congressional committee. His pardon was not popular at the time, and it may well have cost him the presidency in the 1976 election. But he felt strongly that the public needed to hear from him personally about why he thought the pardon was essential to the national interest. So he made the truly unprecedented decision to come to the Hill to testify under oath himself. As he later said, ``The bigger the issue, the greater the need for political courage.''
The current White House political staff has chosen a different approach. They have pressed the attack button on their quick-response machine in an attempt to destroy Richard Clarke and destroy his credibility about the events leading up to 9/11 under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, and the President's Republican allies in Congress are aiding and abetting this new and obscene example of the politics of personal destruction.
It is sheer hypocrisy for the White House to encourage Condoleezza Rice to appear on television to dispute Mr. Clarke's testimony to the Commission, and then prevent her from presenting her views to the Commission itself.
Many of us in the Senate will propose a resolution tomorrow urging that Dr. Rice be permitted to testify in public and under oath. There will be ample opportunity after that for the President to decide whether he himself is willing to testify in public and under oath as well.
I yield the floor.
It [the 9-11 commission] has done nothing to suggest to anyone that it will not be fair and just and sensitive to the needs of the individuals and institutions it deals with.
Is not true. I could go on, rebutting his "Wind in the Willows" rhetoricisms, but then, I'd be accused by his side of being "mean". So much for Kennedy's Toad Hall....
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