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QUOTE OF THE DAY
President Bush Discusses No Child Left Behind
Woodridge Elementary and Middle Campus
Washington, D.C.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thank you for the warm welcome. Thank you for inviting Madam Secretary and me to your school. It's nice to be introduced by somebody with a Texas accent. (Laughter.) She's a good buddy, and she is doing a fine job as the Secretary of Education. So, Margaret, thank you very much for your service.

I'm glad to be at Woodridge, as well. I'm here because this is one of America's fine public charter schools. I'm here to remind people that charter schools work, and they can make a difference in the lives of our children. So I want to thank you for letting me come. I want to thank the teachers and the administrators and the principals -- and the principal, for setting high expectations. I know that sounds simple, but you know what happens when you set low expectations? You get low results. And so a center of excellence is always a place of learning where people believe the best. And I want to thank the folks here for setting high expectations. I want to thank you for achieving results.

One out of every four 9th graders in America does not graduate from high school on time. That's unacceptable. If we want to be competitive, we better make sure that the skills that are now being imparted at elementary school and junior high carry on through high school. We don't want the good work here at Woodridge to be lost because there's -- because some say, well, I don't need to get out of high school, or the accountability systems in high school don't measure up. And so what I want to do is I want to have the same sense of accountability in our high schools that we have in our junior high and elementary schools -- not to increase the testing burden, but to help us understand whether or not we are achieving our national objective, which is giving our kids the skills necessary to be competitive.

And so I think we need to fund testing early in the high-school systems, and to help students fix problems like we're doing in elementary school and high schools [sic]. I proposed a billion-and-a-half dollar initiative; Congress needs to fund it.

I've also proposed a program to train 70,000 teachers over five years to lead Advanced Placement classes in our high schools. Advanced Placement works. It is a -- it is an excellent program that helps our high schools set high standards. And it calls -- it challenges our students to achieve great things by raising the standards.

Many of you know about AP. It needs to be spread all throughout America. And step one is to make sure our teachers have the skills necessary to teach it. And step two is to help states develop programs that will help parents pay for the AP test. What we don't want is a child taking an AP class and having mom or dad say, it's too expensive to take the test. You pass an AP test, you're on your way. If you've got the skills necessary to pass an AP test, it means the education system has done its job, and our country is better off.

And so here are some ideas for the Congress and the administration to work on as we think about how to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act. I strongly believe this piece of legislation is working. I know it is necessary to have this kind of rigor in our school systems to say, we have done our job and given our kids the skills necessary to succeed. And I want to thank you all for serving as a great example. Thank you for inviting me. Again, I thank the teachers for teaching, and the parents for loving, and the students for reading.

God bless. (Applause.)

PHOTO OF THE DAY

President George W. Bush poses with students after speaking at a 'No Child Left Behind' event at the Friendship Public Charter School's Woodridge Elementary and Middle Campus in Washington October 5, 2006.

MUST READS . . .

ADVISING HIS SON, 'BUSH BASHING'
Charlie Gibson interviews President Bush 41

Gibson: Tell me which is harder — to be President and to be subjected to the criticisms that come with the job, or to watch your son be subjected to those same criticisms.

Bush:Not a close call. Far worse is watching your son come under fire. Far worse. And we had it to some degree with my second son in Florida who's finishing his second term, Jeb, the governor. And we've had it with the president when he was governor, and now as president. And it's not even a close call. It is not even a close call, when you're responsible for your own acts, when you're the President, you, you take it. Now, I'm just a — just a sentimental … father, who doesn't like it when his kids are criticized.

And it comes with the — I'm not saying it doesn't go with the territory. But you know there's a lotta Bush-bashing, there's a lotta people out there that have nothing good to say about it. I'd hate to single out a newspaper for example but, I can't remember the New York Times ever writing anything positive about our son. And every, we all know that it's a very liberal paper and all of that. But it's, Barbara says, "why do you read it, why do you sit in here complaining all morning?" I say I just wanna get it out of the way. And, but it hurts far worse when, when your son is criticized than when I used to be.

Gibson: What rankles you the most?

Bush: Well, there's all kinds of things that — you mean about criticizing the son?

Gibson: Yep.

Bush: [PAUSE] It's hard to — I couldn't — I don't think I could quantify it for you. But …

Gibson: Is it the criticism on the war? Is it criticism on domestic issues?

Bush: I think it's criticizing him as a person. And it started off that he was a dumb guy, here's a guy who graduated from Harvard Business School, Yale University, did a good job in both, and for some reason the press picked up that he was dumb. And it just burned me up to a fare-thee-well. So that kinda criticism — you don't, you don't hear that much anymore. Very little if any. That kinda personal attack. If you're gonna attack somebody on a, on a, say the differences on the war or difference on the economy or differences on some legislative bill that's one thing. But when it gets so personal, that's what I don't like.

You can read the entire transcript at
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2532996&page=2

ATTENTION ‘BUSH BASHERS’ — GEORGE W BUSH WILL BE OUR PRESIDENT UNTIL JANUARY 2009
By E. Harold Keyes / guest columnist

A day seldom goes by without the media’s attacks on our President.

They condemn his foreign policy of pre-emptive military strikes against an ideological enemy who is determined to attack our nation’s interests and kill Americans wherever they find them. Do they want him to wait for another attack on our country before acting?

And don’t buy the argument that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to our nation. To the contrary, he was paying $25,000 to each Palestinian family that would sacrifice one of their family members to carry out suicide bombing missions against the State of Israel, an ally we have vowed to protect for more than 50 years. He also violated most agreements he made with coalition nations who kicked his army out of Kuwait. In fact, it was discovered that Saddam was in cahoots with the United Nations “Oil for Food” program that deprived the Iraqi people of needed food, clothing, and medical care. Many innocent Iraqi men, women and children were tortured or starved to death during those years. He also had his anti-aircraft gunners firing on our planes daily in defiance of the “no fly zone” imposed on Iraq.

Is it not only logical to think he would wait us out until he could obtain the ultimate weapons against our country? Don’t be so naive to think that he would not have retaliated against the U.S. if given enough time to develop weapons of mass destruction or to align with other terrorists that wish to do us harm? And be reminded, he had the oil resources to obtain weapons or hire terrorists to do his will.

You can read the entire commentary at
http://www.meridianstar.com/opinion/local_story_278004152.html?keyword=topstory

POLLING INFORMATION . . .

All you need to know about the current batch of MSM polls is that their results remain UNCHANGED from previous polls!

And they remain unchanged despite the Woodward book, the Foley pseudo-scandal, and the continued GROSS OVERSAMPLING of Democrats:

AP/IPSOS REID
Registered Voters:
54% Democrats/Democrat-leaning Independents
38% Republicans/Republican-leaning Independents
+16 Democrats -- unbelievable!

Likely Voters:
51% Democrats/Democrat-leaning Independents
41% Republicans/Republican-leaning Independents
+10 Democrats
[After a 37:37 split in 2004, we're now expected to believe that Democrats hold a 10 point advantage?! . . . NOT!]

[Click "topline results"]
http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=3210

PEW
Registered Voters:
51% Democrats/Democrat-leaning Independents
38% Republicans/Republican-leaning Independents
+13 Democrats

[Click "topline questionnaire"]
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=290

MSM polls continue to redefine the terms BIASED and BOGUS!

We can only hope the Democrats actually believe this tripe . . . Their overconfidence will help us WIN on election day!