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THE FULL SPEECH------->

Friday, July 25, 2003

Fear and Loathing in the Mother Ship

Good afternoon, or, as John Kerry might say: “Bonjour!”

I'm sure you've already heard a good many speakers today and will hear a bunch more after I'm done.

So you'll probably judge my speech more on its brevity than its persuasiveness.

But that's okay, because as you may have heard, we Republicans from Texas aren't known for our el-o-qua-city.

But we are known for being clear.

So in the interests of clarity, I have a simple message to pass along: the national Democrat party seems to have lost its marbles.

Though they remain a potent electoral machine, armed with battalions of trial lawyers and entertainers, and their Grand Coalition of the Perpetually Partisan, they are no longer a serious force in the national debate.

Their single organizing philosophy is an irrational, all-encompassing, broiling hatred of George W. Bush.

They hate him for a million reasons.

But most of all, Democrats hate the president because on every political issue of significance since he came into office, he has beaten them like rented mules.

Just look at their presidential candidates: it's like they're lost in a time warp.

They want to tax like Mondale and spend like Carter.

While everyone else got the memo that big-government, blame-America-first liberalism died with disco, the Howard Dean Democrats still want to party like it's 1979!

Maybe we should thank the Democrats for shedding their moderate clothing to reveal their true Swinging-Seventies selves.

But frankly, America doesn't need a president in a hot-pink leisure suit.

Today, the United States is at war.

It's not a war of our choosing, nor of our instigation.

But it is a war.

The September 11th attacks were not isolated incidents, or the actions of disgruntled political dissidents.

They were a premeditated assault on the freedom of every human being on this planet, and the United States is now committed to fight global terrorism with every resource at our disposal.

Containment is not an option – to say nothing of appeasement.

Terrorism will either be confronted – dead on – or it will destroy the free nations of the earth.

But in the last 18 months, it has become clear that the extreme, Bush-hating wing of the Democrat Party has decided to either ignore or reject the fundamental realities of 21st century life.

And rather than distance themselves from the hate, the party's leaders have embraced it.

To try to gauge just how out of touch the Democrat leadership is on the war on terror, just close your eyes and try to imagine Ted Kennedy landing that Navy jet on the deck of that aircraft carrier.

I don't know about you, I certainly don't want to see Teddy Kennedy in a Navy flight suit anytime soon.

After their embarrassing behavior over the last 18 months, the Democrats now have no credibility on national security.

Just look at the record.

John Kerry says what we really need is “regime change in Washington.”

After the Iraqi uprising at Firdos Square, House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi said she STILL opposed the war, and that "we could have brought down that statue for a lot less."

More recently, Howard Dean said he wasn't sure if the people in Iraq were better off under Saddam Hussein or not.

When criticized for these kinds of comments, the Democrats said we were questioning their patriotism.

Not so!

The Democrats' problem is not a lack of patriotism. It's a lack of seriousness.

They don't hate their country, they just refuse to lead it.

I will never call the Democrat Party unpatriotic, but I will call their current leadership unfit to face the serious challenges of the 21st century.

Just look at their rhetoric about the President's State of the Union speech.

Saddam Hussein – it is universally accepted by the international intelligence community – had weapons of mass destruction.

He was working to get more. He was a sponsor of terror and a threat to his neighbors.

He started two wars, tortured countless dissidents, and was so desperate to develop nuclear weapons that American presidents of both political parties urged his ouster.

His removal from power was an absolute good and Operation Iraqi Freedom was justified by any moral, political, legal, or humanitarian standard you apply to it.

No responsible leader could have permitted him to remain in Baghdad.

Yet the Democrats now spew more rhetoric about President Bush than they ever did about Saddam Hussein.

So unserious are the Democrats that they are now embarrassing themselves and their party over a single, irrelevant sentence in a 10-year old case for war that could run a hundred thousand pages long.

Howard Dean says the president intentionally misled the American people.

John Kerry hinted Operation Iraqi Freedom was about oil.

Dick Gephardt the other day said we were less safe and less secure than we were four years ago… when Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein ran free.

Blame-America-first liberals all over the country are repeating this nonsense.

But make no mistake: this isn't just campaign rhetoric we're talking about.

Let's be real clear:

If you take their comments to their logical conclusion, they're essentially calling our Commander in Chief, Benedict Arnold.

Ridiculous as it sounds, the logical extension of the Democrat leadership's assertion is that President Bush is an international war criminal.

If we are to take this nonsense seriously, THAT is how out of control the Democrats' rhetoric has become.

But, you see, that's the whole point.

The Democrats' accusations AREN'T meant to be taken seriously.

Because they're unserious people.

We're in the middle of a global conflict between good and evil and they're in the middle of a Michael Dukakis look-alike contest.

They either don't understand or don't care that this is a time for serious leadership.

They're just trying to change the subject, because on the issue of Iraq, they have nothing of substance to offer: only fear, and loathing, and a motley crew of presidential contenders.

They've gone off the deep end.

Consider:

Bob Graham – a respected former governor and chairman of the intelligence committee – is calling for the president's impeachment.

John Edwards – a so-called moderate – compares the president to a dangerous socialist.

And Dennis Kucinich – a long-time member of Congress – now calls for legislation – I love this – to ban “mind control” weapons in outer space.

These ideas aren't unpatriotic… they're just weird.

It makes you wonder if at their next presidential debate, the Democrats are all going to show up wearing aluminum-foil helmets to protect their brain waves from the mother ship!

People who believe such things cannot be trusted with national leadership, period.

These are the stakes, ladies and gentlemen.

But as extreme, hateful, and bizarre as their leaders' rhetoric has become, we can never forget that the Democrat Party is still a mammoth institution with a strong and proud heritage.

It's still a formidable political machine, and national balance between the parties is still the norm, even if Republicans have recently pulled ahead in national polls.

Democrat leaders may follow each other off the cliff, but their rank-and-file voters are smart and honest people, and they want to elect their candidates every bit as much as Republicans do.

That's where you come in.

Most everyone who speaks to College Republicans at some point utters the phrase, “You are the future.”

But speaking as your Majority Leader, I'm here to say you don't get off that easy.

College Republicans aren't our future – you're part of our present.

The Democrats' leaders can afford to be unserious, but you can't.

You know better.

You know that ideas have consequences, that words have meaning, and that in times of crisis people must act.

So I come to you today to call on you to act.

You've already shown your commitment to Republican principles by joining the C-R's, and when you return to school, I want you to contact your local Republican congressional candidate's office and ask to join the STOMP program.

STOMP – Strategic Task force for the Organization and Mobilization of People – is a powerful manpower organization I started a few years back.

Every Republican member of Congress is recruiting these specialized volunteers to make the difference in the Congressional and Presidential elections in every district in the country next year.

STOMP was one of the reasons Republicans won our upset victory in the mid-term elections in 2002, and it's going to be one of the reasons we win a national mandate in 2004.

College students are the lifeblood of STOMP, and STOMP is critical to the success of the Republican Party.

We left STOMP brochures on your chairs before you came in. I strongly encourage you to take a look, make the call, and join in the Republican Party's fight to fulfill America's promise.

We have an agenda – a real agenda – to make America safe, strong, and prosperous.

With the president's leadership and your help, we're going to make history next year.

Thank you for having me.

Keep up the good work.