Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, there are some enormous issues that face America today, but something is lost, as we talk about the challenges in the war on terror and the President's leadership in Iraq and, of course, finally, the strongly recovering economy under President Bush's leadership, is the President's space vision for tomorrow.

It becomes important that we pay attention to the great things that the President has proposed. For the first time really in 2 decades, we have a new space vision to guarantee that America will continue to be the predominant space leader through the next millennium, as it has been over the last 50 years. It is important that we return the Shuttle to flight; it is important that we complete the international space station. But more importantly, the President has given us a new vision so that we can explore mid-Earth orbit and outer-Earth orbit.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest that Sean O'Keefe is doing a wonderful job. I hope this House will be able to focus in the next 5 months and after the election on a bipartisan American vision for leadership in space. The President's vision is affordable, it is visionary, it is flexible; and, most important, it will maintain America's leadership in space.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary for yielding me time; and I appreciate his leadership on this issue.

I rise to note a couple of important points. I would start with the proposition that Lord Churchill pointed out, and that is that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. It is an inconvenient form of government even at the best of times, but the gentleman just spoke and suggested that we need to have more debate about how the People's House should have its representatives selected.

The truth of the matter is, from the inception of our Republic we have had that great debate and our Founding Fathers have solved that debate for us. They have told us that the People's House need to be elected by the people.

Speaking of the inconvenience of democracy, George Mason during that great debate suggested that ``whatever inconvenience may attend the democratic principle, it must actuate one part of government.'' By the way, that is us. He continued, ``It is the only security for the rights of the people.''

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to you that doing away temporarily with democracy is something that a lot of aspiring democracies in third world countries have done, and temporary turns out to be a long time and sometimes forever. The worst thing that we can do is to throw out our traditions because we are having a serious crisis.

It is a shame that a great, honorable debate about how we continue the traditions our Founding Fathers gave this great House, the People's House, always elected by the people of the various States, it is a shame that it has descended into sort of a partisan roughhouse here because that certainly is inappropriate. But I would point out that the Democratic party, big D, is being very undemocratic, small d, in this debate. The Republican party is being very, small r, republican during this debate because it is the Republic that our Founders gave us that we are trying to defend, especially as it relates to article 1 and how the people of this House, that represent all of the citizens of the United States, are selected.

I would end up by stating that James Madison, the prime author of our Constitution itself, suggested he ``considered the popular election of one branch of national legislature an essential plan of every free government.''

Mr. Speaker, I would ask every Member of the House to support Madison's version, our version, of a free government, defend elections, and do not do away with elections temporarily or ever.

Mr. Speaker, this Member commends this remarkable speech because of its brevity and clarity and the extraordinary manner in which the speaker explains the appropriate and honorable role of federal judges.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R- Wis.) spoke this morning before the Judicial Conference, a body composed of federal judges of districts and levels from across the country and headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Chairman Sensenbrenner delivered the following remarks:

Thank you for the invitation to speak this morning before

the Judicial Conference of the United States.

As we all know, the Founders of our Republic drafted a

blueprint for self-government that has endured for well over

two centuries because it delineated a balanced relationship

among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The

tripartite system engrafted into our Constitution has served

as a model charter of government for nations around the

world; and the intellectual legacy of our Founders is the

proud birthright of every American.

The Founders anticipated, indeed welcomed, a dynamic

interplay among the branches of government. For example, in a

speech to the House of Representatives in 1789 concerning the

proper role of the judicial branch, James Madison stated: ``I

acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the

exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the

judicial; but I beg to know upon what principle it can be

contended that any one department draws from the Constitution

greater powers than another, in marking out the limits of the

powers of the several departments.'' The relationships among

the federal branches over the course of our nation's history

has been typified by comity and mutual respect. While

sometimes rivalrous, relations among the branches have been

free of the destructive impulses that have proven ruinous to

other nations.

The relative tranquility in these inter-branch relations is

at least partly attributable to the clarity with which the

Constitution assigns authority to each branch.

The Constitution provides Congress a central role in

regulating the Judiciary. Article I provides Congress the

authority to establish the lower federal courts, determine

the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction, impeach and

remove judges, and to enact laws necessary and proper for

executing these authorities.

Unfortunately, over the past year or so, Congress, and the

House Judiciary Committee in particular, has been under

sustained criticism for its constitutionally-mandated

legislative and oversight actions concerning the federal

judiciary. The stridency of these remarks has sometimes taken

on a harshness that is not only uncommon, but inconsistent

with the historic amity that has governed relations between

the branches.

As we all know, Congress passed the PROTECT Act last year,

which among other things reformed the federal criminal laws

concerning child abduction and child pornography. Among the

provisions of the bill were reforms of the federal sentencing

guidelines; particularly, reforms correcting abuse by federal

judges of downward departure authority. The Feeney Amendment

was approved by the House of Representatives on a straight

up-or-down vote by an overwhelming bipartisan majority--357

to 58. The final bill, which included weakened Feeney

provisions, passed the House 400 to 25 and the Senate 98 to

0.

The Feeney Amendment represents a legislative response to

long-standing Congressional concern that the Sentencing

Guidelines were increasingly being circumvented by some

federal judges through inappropriate downward departures,

resulting in a return to sentencing disparities.

Much attention has been focused on the Judiciary

Committee's oversight of the Chief Judge of the District of

Minnesota following misleading testimony before the Committee

concerning the application of the federal sentencing

guidelines. He identified specific cases as relevant to the

Committee's consideration of pending legislation. Thereafter,

the Committee sought the public records of these cases and

certain others in which the Chief Judge had departed

downward. Among other documents, the Committee obtained a

transcript of one of the Chief Judge's sentencing hearings in

which he admitted to having granted ``an illegal departure''

in the case and dared the United States to appeal his one

month variance. Surely reasonable persons would conclude that

Congress has a responsibility to inquire further in the face

of such an admission.

In a letter to me dated November 7, 2003 this body (the

Judicial Conference of the United States) objected to ``the

dissemination of judge-specific data on sentencing in

criminal cases,'' and suggested that ``Congress should meet

its responsibility to oversee the functioning of the criminal

justice system through use of this data without subjecting

individual judges to the risk of unfair criticism in isolated

cases.'' I have been perplexed as to why such furor has been

raised over obtaining records from a judge's publicly decided

cases.

Assuredly, federal judges in a democracy may be

scrutinized, and may even be ``unfairly criticized.'' Subject

to removal from office upon conviction of

impeachment, Article III judges have been given lifetime

tenure precisely to be better able to withstand such

criticism, not to be immune from it.

That the Congress, the elected representatives of the

people, may obtain and review the public records of the

Judicial branch is both Constitutionally authorized and

otherwise appropriate. Over 200 years of precedents show that

the Judiciary as a collective body, or an individual judge,

is subject to Congressional inquiry. For example, every year

Congress scrutinizes budget requests and appropriates money.

On a more targeted basis, articles of impeachment against

federal judges stemming from their conduct on the bench have

led to both impeachment by the House and trial and conviction

in the Senate and removal from office on several occasions.

Of course, I think we all can agree that impeachment ought

not lie simply because Congress may disagree with a judge's

``judicial philosophy,'' or because Congress considers a

judge's ruling ``unwise or out of keeping with the times.''

That is a far cry from the suggestion that Congress lacks

authority, or should not exercise it, to conduct appropriate

oversight of the judicial branch including individual judges.

The Committee's oversight of the sentencing record of the

Chief Judge of the District of Minnesota is not premised upon

disagreement concerning the ``wisdom'' of a particular

sentence, but upon its legality.

I think it is important to note that Congressional

oversight has assumed increased importance because of the

delegated authority currently possessed by the Judiciary to

investigate and impose appropriate discipline upon its

members and its decidedly mixed record in this regard. I have

previously noted my profound disappointment with the

whitewash of the Congressional complaint against the

Honorable Richard D. Cudahy of the 7th Circuit Court of

Appeals while serving on the Special Division of the D.C.

Circuit Court overseeing independent counsels. Judge Cudahy,

whether inadvertent or otherwise, leaked confidential sealed

grand jury material to an AP reporter on the day that former

Vice President Gore was nominated to run for President. Judge

Cudahy admitted to his acts only upon threat of exposure by a

criminal investigation and polygraph examination, after

seeking to preclude any investigation.

In response to my formal complaint as Chairman of the

Committee on the Judiciary, Judge Richard Posner, only eight

days after its receipt, simply whitewashed the matter

regarding his colleague Judge Cudahy without conducting any

investigation. Judge Posner dismissed the matter out of hand

by noting that Judge Cudahy had apologized and Judge Posner

concluded that the leak simply did not constitute Rule 6(e)

``matters occurring before the grand jury.'' This conclusion

is contrary to the view of the Chief Judge of the Special

Division of the D.C. Circuit Court, Judge David B. Sentelle.

The Judiciary's response in the Cudahy matter stands in

contrast to the Congressional Judicial complaint concerning

Judge Norma Holloway Johnson. In this case, an independent

investigator was hired to review and evaluate allegations,

outlined in a congressional complaint, that the Chief Judge

of the D.C. judicial district bypassed the random case-

assignment process in four campaign finance cases that

were potentially politically embarrassing. The rules of

the court with respect to case-assignments changed as a

result.

The experience with the Cudahy matter and the Chief Judge

of the District of Minnesota raises profound questions with

respect to whether the Judiciary should continue to enjoy

delegated authority to investigate and discipline itself. If

the Judiciary will not act, Congress will--consistent with

its Constitutional responsibilities. Congress will begin

assessing whether the disciplinary authority delegated to the

judiciary has been responsibly exercised and ought to

continue.

Before I conclude, I wish to touch briefly on a point that

has generated significant scholarly debate and renewed

urgency in light of recent Supreme Court decisions: the

Court's increased reliance on foreign laws or judicial

proceedings in the interpretation of American constitutional

and statutory law. Article VI of the Constitution

unambiguously states that the Constitution and federal

statutes are the supreme law of the land. America's

sovereignty may be imperiled by a jurisprudence predicated

upon laws and judicial decisions unfound in our Constitution

and unincorporated by the Congress. Inappropriate judicial

adherence to foreign laws or legal tribunals threatens

American sovereignty, unsettles the separation of powers

carefully crafted by our Founders, and threatens to undermine

the legitimacy of the American judicial process. I anticipate

Congressional examination of this issue in the coming months.

Thanks again for the opportunity to speak before the

conference today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Israel's security fence.

In yet another example of political manipulation of a U.N. body, Palestinians and their supporters have convinced the International Court of Justice to take up the issue of Israel's security fence.

On December 8, 2003, the General Assembly of the United Nations, sitting as an Emergency Special Session, adopted resolution ES 10/14 requesting the ICJ to render an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's security fence. This recent action by the Arab nations is an indignation both in relation to the jurisdiction of the Court to address such an issue, and the propriety of such a proceeding.

The International Court of Justice was set up in 1945 under the Charter of the United Nations to be the principal judicial organ of the Organization. The blatant use of the ICJ to further a political agenda is not only an outrage but an obvious conflict with the original purpose of the Court.

Article 36 of the Court's Statute states that contentious issues may only be brought before the Court with the consent of all parties. In this case, not only is the issue at hand clearly contentious, but the parties have already agreed on appropriate mechanisms for resolving such issues between themselves. Israel has voiced their deep reservations about the Arab initiative to involve the ICJ in complex political issues that should be resolved through negotiation and the abuse of the U.N. and the ICJ as part of a narrow political campaign.

A significant group of states, including the United States, Switzerland, Uganda and Italy stated in the General Assembly that they oppose the request for an advisory opinion because it goes directly against the Road Map and the wishes of the Security Council, which unanimously endorsed the Road Map in Resolution 1515 of November 19, 2003 and which has repeatedly called for resolution of the conflict via direct negotiations in accordance with Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).

The Government of Israel has recently reiterated its commitment to the Road Map. It believes that those who support the efforts of the Quartet and the international community in bringing the sides together should stress to the ICJ the importance of not prejudicing that process and emphasize that the Court should refuse to respond to the question at hand.

The U.N. General Assembly has been a hotbed of anti-Israel activity, passing more resolutions against Israel than on any other subject--more than 400 since 1964. In contrast, the body has never investigated the Palestinian terror campaign against Israel, nor has it investigated abuse, torture and other human rights violations by non-democratic states in the Arab world.

On a host of issues, the U.N. and its agents, in this case the ICJ, have become not only irrelevant to the cause of furthering classically liberal democracies and peace, but actually hostile to our efforts to promote basic freedoms.

I urge the International Court of Justice to uphold the integrity of it's Statute and recognize Israel's security fence as a necessary measure to protect their people from those who believe that the path to salvation is paved by killing Jewish women and children. Otherwise, once again a U.N. entity will end up on the wrong side of peace, security, freedom and democracy.

Mr. Speaker, today we will pass a resolution honoring the great members of the Columbia crew and their sacrifice. As Lincoln reminded us at Gettysburg, such tributes are altogether fitting and proper. But also, as he observed, we can never fully consecrate times and places of sacrifice. That task is ultimately done by those making the sacrifice. Rather, we, the living, are tasked with taking increased devotion to the unfinished business for which the last full measure of devotion was given.

Both NASA and the President have demonstrated such increased devotion. The NASA team entered the crucible of self-examination and emerged with strengthened resolve and will. The President has charted a course for a reinvigorated human space program, breaking out of low earth orbit, returning to the moon, and then exploring our solar system.

I hope this House responds in kind. This resolution reassures the loved ones of the Columbia's crew that last year's loss will strengthen this Nation's resolve to continue the journey of discovery in space. In the weeks ahead, let us carry out this pledge of increased devotion.

Mr. Speaker, three weeks ago the leaders of more than thirty nations around the Western Hemisphere gathered in Miami for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Eighth Ministerial meeting for the purpose of expanding free trade within the Western Hemisphere.

I watched with great interest as these negotiations progressed, fully cognizant of the significant impact that they could have on my state of Florida.

Free trade and free markets are essentially about making trade easier by allowing the market to balance needs, supply and demand. We are engaged in a battle to tear down trade barriers around the world in an effort to promote jobs, competition and greater prosperity for all countries involved. Since Adam Smith explained the benefits of free trade in his great work ``The Wealth of Nations'', thoughtful policy makers have understood the need to reduce these barriers. The famous economist Joseph Schumpeter once proclaimed that capitalism relies on the free flow of information and goods.

The talks in Miami generated positive movement towards greater economic integration in this hemisphere. Trade Ministers agreed to a baseline of minimum standards for a full and comprehensive agreement that takes into account differing levels of development among nations. This framework is a step forward that gives nations needed flexibility.

As we continue these discussions, I would caution the negotiators to find an acceptable balance between the need to open up to new foreign markets and to protect an industry that is vital to America's supply of fresh fruit and Florida's economic infrastructure: the Florida citrus industry.

There are only two countries that produce 90 percent of the world's orange juice: the United States and Brazil. Brazil currently sells to the United States and has a large market share in the European Union. Without competition from the Florida citrus industry, Brazil would enjoy a monopoly over world orange juice production.

The citrus industry in Florida generates revenues of $9.1 billion each year and employs nearly 90,000 people without subsidies from the Federal Government. A collapse of this industry would not only cost tens of thousands of jobs, it would also cost the State and local governments of Florida up to $1 billion in lost tax revenues.

Removal of the U.S. tariff on orange juice imports would not enhance free trade. It would rather give Brazil a total world monopoly, make that country the world's dominant citrus producer and enable them to control market supply, access and prices with no competition.

The Brazilian citrus industry has benefited from years of subsidization, dumping, lax environmental laws, price manipulation and weak and largely unenforced labor laws. I would urge our negotiators to insist on drastic reforms in the Brazilian citrus industry prior to agreeing to any tariff changes. Florida's citrus industry can compete with Brazil, or anyone else for that matter, as long as there is a level playing field.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), who is a great friend of mine, for yielding me this time.

House Concurrent Resolution 320 expresses the sense of Congress regarding the importance of motorsports in America. If we think about this, it is going to be a great 100-year centennial celebration. I also thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), who is my cosponsor on this resolution and also helped me to introduce this resolution to honor the 100-year anniversary, which is very important to Americans.

Mr. Speaker, 100 years ago the first sanctioned automobile race was held in Ormond Beach, Florida, on the beach, just slightly north of my district, in the district currently represented by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica). We have come a long way in automobile racing and automobiles in the United States of America since then.

In 1903, automobiles were mostly for the well-off, the rich. These races were sponsored by the Ormond Hotel Association. It was a seasonal gathering place for wealthy northerns down on the beach in Florida, which is a great place to vacation no matter what decade or year or century it happens to be.

The 3-day tournament of time trials was held in March 1903 for the first time and set seven American records and two world records. The Ormond Challenge Cup, one of the first times an American speed race took place, Bullet Number 1 was owned by Alexander Winton and car Number 2 was Pirate owned by Ransom Olds of Oldsmobile fame; and they dueled each other in what is now known as drag racing. Bullet Number 1 won by two-tenths of a second.

For 8 years, Ormond Beach was the place to go, but ultimately beach racing migrated south to Daytona Beach, which is now a district shared by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) and myself. In 1936, stock car racing began on a 3.2 mile beach course. Cars ran 1.5 miles north on the beach, took a banked sand turn, and ran 1.5 miles back on a paved raceway and returned to the beach.

World War II stopped automobile racing; but at the end of World War II, a famous American racer, a hero to race fans, William ``Big Bill'' France, one of the first racers back in the 1930s, along with 18 other members, started NASCAR. NASCAR took root on the beach of Ponce Inlet, a beautiful place to visit whether a race fan or not. In 1948, NASCAR began racing there on a 2.2 mile track, one-half mile on the beach's hard-paved sands, and the other one-half mile on the paved South Atlantic Boulevard back.

Ultimately, we decided to get off the beach because there were too many fans gathering around the beach races on an annual basis in the Daytona Beach area. It was Bill France and his family that led the way. They wanted to move racing from the beach to a specially designed, challenging race course.

Starting in 1953, Mr. France started to build an inland race facility. The speedway opened in February 1959 with the first Daytona 500, a race that is famous to this very day. There were 41,000 fans that witnessed that first race, and today we still watch and enjoy that race on an annual basis. This year there are some 13 million fans who will attend NASCAR events in the United States of America.

But it is not just Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach; I am proud of my district's record in terms of establishing the first creative, exciting races for America, but the truth of the matter is now we have the Indianapolis 500. The first Indianapolis 500 was held in 1911, and the race was won with a top speed of 74.6 miles per hour. I note on a collateral basis, that is not enough to get a driver ahead of the next car on the Florida Turnpike today; but the truth is, we have come a long way.

Today's auto racing facilities have come an awful long way from the early races on the beach. Motorsports entertainment complexes nowadays accommodate tens of thousands of fans on tracks that are safer for drivers and spectators alike. Facilities like Daytona Beach International Speedway and other facilities across the country have evolved into what we would have to consider full-fledged theme parks for constant year-around entertainment for families and racing enthusiasts alike.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that research and development of the vehicles that Americans use every day on the streets have been facilitated by the challenges that we have on NASCAR fast-track speedways around the country. What started as amusement for wealthy individuals in the Florida sunshine in the winter now provides not just entertainment for millions of Americans, but also helps us beef up our technological, our safety, and our capabilities across the board.

I think it is fitting that we recognize a sport that on a daily basis gets TV ratings the same as any of the major football or basketball sports; and if we look at attendance at the parks where these NASCAR events are run, they are three times what we will get for the Super Bowl last year, this year, and every year; and they do that in some 31 States that have these events.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentlewoman from Florida that there is a November 10 article in National Review magazine that on the front cover refers to America now as ``NASCAR Nation,'' and I include a copy of that article for the Record.

NASCAR Nation

one journalist's journey of discovery

(By John Derbyshie)

Forget about the Soccer Mom, object of obsessive interest

to political strategists in the last two presidential

elections. Two election cycles is as much concentrated

attention as a voter bloc can expect to get in these fast-

changing times. The candidates of 2004 have fixed their

sights on a new quarry: the NASCAR Dad. So, at any rate, we

are told by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who coined the

term. A NASCAR Dad is a rural or small-town voter, most

likely white and living in the South. Once upon a time he was

a reliable Democrat, but he has been voting steadily

Republican in recent elections for ``cultural'' reasons--

reasons having to do with guns, religion, patriotism, and

lifestyle. What, exactly, is his connection with NASCAR--the

National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing? In the hope

of finding out, I recently attended a major NASCAR event at

the Talladega track in Alabama. Before I report on what I

found, here is some background on the sport NASCAR

represents.

The term ``stock car'' refers to a street automobile from a

dealer's stock, the kind you and I drive, as opposed to the

custom-built pod-and-strut mutants you see in Formula One

racing. When ordinary citizens began to purchase automobiles

in large numbers in the 1930s and 1940s, some of them were

taken with the urge to race against other drivers on unpaved

local dirt tracks. Spectators assembled to watch. Drivers

tinkered with their engines to give them more speed. This was

happening all over the country by the late 1940s, when NASCAR

was founded, but it was happening much more in the South than

elsewhere. Wherever it happened, though, it was from the

beginning mainly a working-class interest, taken up by young

men who liked fiddling with automobiles and exhibiting

physical courage among their peers.

A notable early attempt to bring stock-car racing to wider

attention was Tom Wolfe's long article ``The Last American

Hero'' in the March 1965 issue of Esquire. Wolfe's subject

was Junior Johnson, who raced from 1953 to 1966, and was

thereafter involved in the sport as an owner until 1995. One

of stock-car racing's early superstars, Johnson had perfected

his skills by working as a driver for his father's moonshine

business in the Appalachian foothills, racing along remote

country roads by night to outwit the ``revenuers''--agents of

the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Johnson

Senior was one of the biggest operators of illegal whiskey

stills in the South.

Tom Wolfe had no difficulty getting some color out of

Junior Johnson and his neighbors in Wilkes County, N.C. While

insisting that ``very few grits, Iron Boy overalls,

clodhoppers or hats with ventilation holes up near the crown

enter into this story,'' Wolfe nonetheless managed to leave

his readers with the impression that stock-car racing was a

sport favored pretty exclusively by white Southern rustics--

the kind of people who keep coon dogs and, in common with the

late Hank Williams, believe that ``hill'' rhymes with

``real.'' Junior Johnson's own take on the episode was of

course from the other side of the cultural divide: ``That

Wolfe guy was something else. He showed up down here in

Wilkes County talkin' funny with a New York accent [Wolfe is

from Virginia], and wearin' fancy clothes.''

Officials of NASCAR nowadays wince at this Southern-rustic

image. Stock-car racing is, they insist, a sport for

everyone, an inclusive sport, a family sport. For 30 years

they have been trying to shake off those connotations of

liquor-running good ol' boys and big-haired women. They have

had some success in spreading interest around the country,

but they have not yet persuaded America's cognitive elites to

take stock-car racing seriously. This was apparent in

February 2001, when NASCAR superstar Dale Earnhardt was

killed in a crash at the Daytona 500. Earnhardt was mourned

extravagantly by millions of racing fans. Meanwhile, from

executive suites and faculty common rooms, from the wood-

paneled corridors of prestigious law firms, from the

bustling, ``diversity''-obsessed editorial offices of

broadsheet newspapers and network-TV newsrooms, rose the

plaintive cry: ``Dale who?''

Yet if you look at the numbers, this is not a minor sport.

NASCAR's Winston Cup, the biggest of the three ``major

league'' series in the stock-car-racing calendar, drew 6.7

million ticketed spectators for 36 events last year, an

average of 186,000 per event. By way of comparison, paid

attendance for the NFL in 2002 averaged 66,000 per event, for

major league base 28,000, for NBA basketball 17,000. TV

viewership for a NASCAR race runs around 15 to 20 million,

the same as for many major-league baseball playoff games.

What is that all these people are watching? What's the

appeal? There must be some deep desire in the human psyche to

watch human beings race vehicles round a circuit. Chariot

races were, after all, an obsession of both the Romans and

the Byzantines. I went to Alabama seeking enlightenment.

far from disney

Your first impression of Talladega speedway is of sheer

size. The track is an approximate oval, with grandstands at

both the long sides. Seen from one grandstand, the opposite

one seems to shimmer in the misty distance. It is in fact

only three-fifths of a mile away, but appears farther because

of the haze generated by huge quantities of traffic all

around, and by barbecue grills on the infield. Oh, the

infield--I had better explain about the Talladega infield.

The infield--212 acres at Talladega--is the interior of the

oval. You get to it by driving through one of three tunnels

under the track. Much of the infield is taken up with

maintenance areas, garages, administrative buildings, and

access roads, but the remainder--around 120 acres--is

available to fans. And here they are, the hard core of stock-

car-racing fandom. And here are their vehicles: Your second

impression of the speedways is that you have never in your

life seen so many RVs (that is, recreational vehicles,

campers) all in one place. The infield fan areas are filled

with folk who arrive typically a day or two before the big

race and just camp out there in the infield. Some of the RVs

are improvised. One popular model consists of an old school

bus painted some improbable color, with metal railings welded

around the roof so the occupants can stand up there to watch

the race.

NASCAR's attempts to Disneyfy their sport have made little

headway in the Talladega infield. The crowd is noisy and

beery. They wear denim shorts and T-shirts, baseball caps or

bandannas. I see a lot of tattoos and a lot of Confederate

flags. The track's security people inspect the interior of

each vehicle before allowing it to park, and I was told it

has been ``some years'' since there was a shooting on the

infield, but things still get rowdy, particularly the night

before a big race. (Among the track's other administrative

facilities is a small jail.) Rowdy, and raunchy too: The

Mardi Gras custom of beads for skin (you give the lady a

string of beads, she briefly exposes her chest) has come up

to Talladega, and it is common to see girls with several

strings of beads round their necks--although, as one of my

NASCAR minders noted wistfully, ``The girls you'd like to see

doing it aren't the ones doing it.''

I watched the first few minutes of the race from the

infield, near the starting line. The 43 competing vehicles

circle the track slowly, two by two, behind a pace car. Each

car's position in line has been determined by pre-race

qualifying laps. As they come to the starting line, the pace

car pulls off the track, a green flag is waved and the

drivers throttle up to full power. Everyone had told me that

this is the most thrilling moment of a race, and they did not

lie. That mighty surge of engines, the even mightier roar of

the crowd, the smell of gasoline and rubber, all combine into

an extraordinary sensory experience. What follows is

necessarily something of anticlimax, especially as it goes on

for three hours or more. The lead cars tend to form a large

``pack,'' so you get a small reprise of that starting thrill

each time the pack passes your viewing point, but after half

of an hour or so, as the faster cars lapped the slower ones.

I lost track of who was leading.

I wandered down to the pit area. Cars need to be refueled

as several points in a 500-mile race, and wheels need to be

changed. A driver loses position when he makes a pit stop, of

course, and part of the strategy of racing--there is a great

deal of strategy in this sport--is judging the best time to

make your stops. The pit work is done with terrific dispatch,

by teams who practice endlessly at shaving tenths of a

second off their turnaround time. The team I watched--it

was driver Bill Elliott's--changed four wheels and

refueled the car all in less than 15 seconds. They have a

trick of pre-fixing the lugs in place on the replacement

wheels with an elastic cement. Then, when the old wheel is

off, on goes the new one, bang!, and the power wrench

secures the lugs, DZ!-DZ!-DZ!-DZ!-DZ! ``Slicker 'n snot on

a doorknob,'' pronounced the team leader with satisfaction

as Elliott vroomed away.

Up close the cars look surprisingly small and flimsy. Their

``stock'' nature is, at this point in the evolution of the

sport, highly theoretical. Eligible models in the Winston Cup

series are the Chevy Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix, Ford

Taurus, and Dodge Intrepid, but none of the cars I saw bore

much resemblance to the street models of those marques. None

of their side bodywork panels paused to include a door, for

instance; the driver climbs in and out through his side

window (which has no glass). An owner I spoke with, who had a

Monte Carlo entered in the race, described to me in loving

detail how his mechanics hand-tool all the care parts in his

75,000-square-foot machine shop. I interrupted him to ask:

``You hand-make everything? So where, exactly, does Chevrolet

come in?'' He looked a little flustered. ``Oh, you know, they

supply some parts . . . the chassis design . . . ''

It is commonly said that car-racing fans go to the track in

the hope of seeing a grisly crash. From my own encounters

with fans on the infield and in the stands, I don't believe

this. Aside from the sensory thrills of speed and noise, and

the rude social pleasures of the infield, the main appeal of

the sport, for most fans, lies in rooting for their favorite

drivers. Each one has some points of character, personal

history, or driving style that endear him to, or repel, some

section of the fan base. A few are wildly popular with

practically everyone: Dale Earnhardt Sr. was, and his son,

Dale Jr., now is. (``On account of his daddy,'' a lady fan in

the stands said fondly when I asked why.) A few are widely

disliked. Kurt Busch, a fast-rising young star known for . .

. unorthodox driving tactics, is a villain to

traditionalists, and to the kind of Southerner who believes

in maintaining the exquisite manners of the region even when

you are trying to kill someone. When the drivers were

individually announced during the pre-race proceedings at

Talladega, his name was greeted with a great outbreak of

booing from the fans.

What then of those stereotypes the NASCAR suits so

strenuously try to distance themselves from? The Southern

bias, for example? Since Talladega, smack plumb in the heart

of the Heart of Dixie, is the only track I have ever been to,

my personal experience of the sport has not been well

balanced, and I shall dutifully report that you can attend a

stock-car race in any part of the country. There are major

tracks in California, Kansas, and New Hampshire. The

mathematician in me wants to check the numbers, though, and

the numbers suggest the following broad truth: Half of this

sport belongs to the South, while the other half is spread

out among all the rest of us.

Take the location of tracks, for example. Defining the

South to be the old Confederacy plus Kentucky, of the 21

major tracks (not counting road courses) in the U.S., 11 are

in the South. These Southern tracks have 15.4 of the

available 32 miles of roadway and 1.31 million of the total

2.46 million grandstand sets. Over a half, nearly a half, and

over a half. It is the same with the 43 drivers at Talladega:

I tallied 21 drivers from the South; the next biggest

regional group was from the Midwest, with 11 drivers.

Every one of these 43 drivers, by the way, was a white

male. None had a Hispanic surname, though Christian

Fittipaldi is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. The median age of the

drivers was over 39--older than I would have expected. Every

one older than 34 was married, with a median 3.5 children.

The Southernness, whiteness, maleness, and (though I am

going out on a limb here) heterosexuality of the sport offer

obvious openings to PC inquisitors. Last June, for example, a

board member of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH operation told

reporters that stock-car racing is ``the last bastion of

white supremacy.'' This was a counterstrike in a campaign by

Jackson's critics to get NASCAR to stop contributing to

Rainbow/PUSH, on the grounds that the funds end up mostly in

the pockets of Jackson, his relatives, and his mistresses.

The campaign was eventually successful and NASCAR stopped

their contributions. In the conversations I had at Talladega,

fan approval was unanimous.

There was nothing racist about that approval, though. Among

the celebrities introduced onstage during the pre-game show

at Talladega were the current Miss America and football great

Reggie White, both black. They were cheered as loudly as

anyone--Reggie White especially so, for having taken a strong

anti-Jackson line in the summer's controversy. It is true

that NASCAR fans are overwhelmingly white, but they have

nothing against black people. It is only that, like much of

the rest of the country, they are sick of the racial-guilt

industry, and most particularly of Jesse Jackson and his

self-enriching shakedown schemes. And although NASCAR has cut

the tie with Jackson, it maintains a busy program of

``diversity internships'' for minority college students.

The reason for the paucity of black drivers and owners--

there are a handful--is captured by Adam Bellow in his book

In Praise of Nepotism: ``In auto racing, an equipment-

intensive sport with a high financial barrier to entry, it

pays to have family connections.'' In fact, the NASCAR

personnel database reads like the First Book of Chronicles,

with drivers begetting drivers and owners in apparently

endless succession.

The social appeal of stock-car racing is wider than it used

to be, and getting still wider, with college logos now

featuring among the ads that festoon race-car bodywork. A

sport built around such a strong network of family

connections is, however, going to grow away from its roots

only very gradually. This remains a conservative sport. That

does not mean, of course, that its fan base can be guaranteed

to vote for conservatives. The folk I mingled with at

Talladega the other day were still largely working- and

lower-middle-class. If they were to lose their jobs in a

major recession, they would not stop to ask whether the

President in charge at the time called himself a conservative

or a liberal. Likewise, while they will cheer on their

commander in chief if he pursues a determined war against our

nation's enemies, they will not long tolerate U.S. fatalities

in a drawn-out politicized conflict where vigorous action is

restrained by deference to the opinions of foreigner hecklers

or self-anointed domestic elites.

I am going to leave it to professional analysts to decide

whether NASCAR Dads will be decisive in the 2004 elections,

and just register the following impression that I brought

away from Talladega with me: Whoever comes into stock-car

racing, whether as driver, or owner, or fan, or political

pollster, or

just inquisitive outsider, will find a sport in which

physical courage is admired, family bonds are treasured, the

nation's flag is honored, and the proper point of balance

between courteous restraint and necessary aggression is

constantly debated. I greatly enjoyed my day at the races. If

NASCAR fans really do form a voting bloc, I would much rather

they were on my side than the other. I am glad to have made

the acquaintance of a thrilling, noisy, colorful, commercial,

very American sport.

Mr. Speaker, this Member commends to his colleagues the October 18, 2003, New York Times op-ed by Brett Decker titled ``A Fair Fight in the Philippines.'' I particularly note that American aid to the Philippine military has wound up on the black market or in the hands of Islamic radicals. America can't pursue its War on Terrorism by practicing the old ways of doing business.

[From the New York Times, Oct. 18, 2003]

A Fair Fight in the Philippines

(By Brett M. Decker)

President Bush is in Manila today to visit his ally in the

war against terror, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the

Philippines. Mr. Bush has already announced some $340 million

in aid to the Philippines this year, and President Arroyo has

said she plans to request additional military assistance to

fight terrorism. There's only one problem with this alliance:

American aid hasn't improved the Philippine military so

far, and in many ways it has benefited the Islamic militants

it seeks to combat.

In August, Gen. Narciso Abaya, chief of the Philippine

armed forces, made an alarming statement about the condition

of his military: ``I admit there is graft and corruption at

all levels.'' A significant share of the military budget is

lost to graft. Selling military hardware on the black market

is another common practice. Recent raids of bases of the

separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front have turned up

caches of arms with Philippine military markings.

Even American assistance is siphoned away. Testimony before

the Philippine Congress in the past several months revealed

that American M-16's provided to the Philippine armed forces

have been recovered in camps belonging to Abu Sayyaf, a band

of guerrillas and kidnappers. Assault rifles, grenade

launchers and other American arms have been used by Muslim

radicals against Philippine troops--the very troops United

States funds are supposed to assist.

American aid to help fight Islamic radicals is often offset

by bribes soldiers take from terrorists to let them get away.

Operatives affiliated with Al Qaeda have escaped from

maximum-security military prisons, once using a helicopter.

If Washington and Manila are serious about eliminating Abu

Sayyaf, the United States Special Forces should be given the

assignment. The terrorist group consists of about 100 poorly

trained amateurs. They would be no match for American

soldiers already in the Philippines, but they are still

eluding Filipino troops.

The Philippine Constitution does not allow foreign troops

to wage combat missions on Filipino soil. It does, however,

allow the United States to come to the defense of the

Philippines if the islands are attacked. Such an action can

be justified in the present case because the terrorist groups

get foreign money.

The mission could win support on Capitol Hill because the

situation in the Philippines is precisely what the one in

Iraq is not: there is a known enemy of limited ability and

numbers on a few small, isolated islands with scant local

support. There is minimal risk of escalation because the

country is only about 5 percent Muslim. Perhaps more

important, fellow Filipino Muslims do not support Abu Sayyaf.

Separatist Moros view them as a for-profit gang of thugs

rather than a religious movement to defend Islam. The

provincial governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim

Mindanao ordered his security force to cooperate in the hunt

for Abu Sayyaf.

Unless the integrity of arms transfers to the Philippine

military can be guaranteed, which is not likely, the United

States should consider cutting off military aid to the

Philippines and replacing it with economic support to help

develop the poor Muslim islands in the south.

There has been some success in winning local ``hearts and

minds'' already.

After building a few roads, bridges, sewers and wells last

year, American soldiers were cheered by appreciative Muslims

as the troops pulled out of Mindanao. More aid for

infrastructure could go a long way to soothing centuries of

resentment derived from being shut out of the national

economy.

A reorientation of American aid would have the added

benefit of helping bolster Philippine democracy. The military

has instigated coups in every administration except one since

1965. Withholding support from the Philippine brass sends the

message that Washington--the nation's most important ally--

expects the military to keep its hands off the civilian

institutions of government.

The White House should carefully assess what course will

best help stabilize one of its most reliable allies in Asia.

Despite the inevitable complications, the Philippines is

worthy of American assistance.

Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise to speak for the life of a fellow citizen, Ms. Terri Schindler-Schiavo. Her story has been heard worldwide and I join millions across the world, including our Governor, Jeb Bush, to urge that her feeding tube be replaced and her life spared.

According to the web site established on her behalf, Terri was 26 years old when she suffered brain damage from a sudden collapse. She receives her food and water by means of a feeding tube. Terri's other bodily functions are physically stable. Terri smiles, laughs and cries. Terri recognizes voices and responds. At times, she vocalizes sounds, trying in her best way to speak.

While these situations are heart-breaking for all of those involved, we need to remember that all life is precious. It is not for us to measure what constitutes ``valuable life v. invaluable.'' We never know how one's life may impact others. While Terri's life seems ``a waste'' or ``over'' to others, she obviously brings delight and happiness to her family and those around her. Her parents and siblings have fought in court to keep Terri alive.

Members, the prospect of a society that places price-tags on human life, is terrifying. We must uphold the American precedent that ``. . . All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life . . .'' I stand in support of Terri's family, as well as our Governor and State leaders who are trying to preserve this precious life.

Mr. Speaker, I just sat through a fairly extraordinary hour with a lot of criticism of the majority leader of the United States. And first thing I want to make clear that I am not here to question anybody's patriotism. I think we have 435 patriotic Members of this wonderful body, and we have got some delegates in addition to that that are patriotic.

What I would say is that Lord Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Britain right before World War II, was a very patriotic Brit, but his policies were very foolish. And they took the free world into some very dangerous times, and we could have lost our freedom throughout the globe.

Lady Thatcher said, as early as 1986, that terrorism thrives on appeasement, much like the problem with Lord Chamberlain's policy, not that he was unpatriotic, but his foolish policies actually encouraged and empowered the Nazis. The same is true, according to Lady Thatcher. And I would submit that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and George W. Bush, our President, are the Churchills of our time when it comes to fighting the war on terror.

Churchill took a lot of criticism leading up to World War II. Our President and our majority leader are the ones that have the courage to lay out a policy to stick to it and make sure that we do what is necessary to win the war on terror just like we won the war against the Nazis in World War II, just as, as Lady Thatcher said, Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a single shot.

The question here is not whether the Republicans or Democrats are patriotic. We are all patriots in this room. The question is who is better prepared to win the war on terror. Because if we lose this war, we will lose our way of life and probably our very lives themselves. The principle is that partisan politics ought, when we have men and women overseas, ought to stop at the water's edge.

And that does not mean nobody is arguing that the debate has to stop about what is best in terms of prosecuting the war. It does not mean that one cannot ask questions, and it does not mean that one cannot vote your conscience. But when one exploits partisan politics while there are men and women fighting for our freedom and our survival and fighting for our way of life against this threat, the international terrorist threat, then there is something fundamentally wrong.

We ought to engage in civilized debate, but what we ought not to do is to let partisan politics dominate our judgment.

Mr. Speaker, I have got a number of Members that want to say a few words about some of the partisan aspects of this debate which are very disappointing. For those of us that are supporting the President, supporting our troops, are certainly supporting our majority leader who has done a wonderful job leading the House through these days, our big question is where the vision of the other party is.

Now, I recognize in parliamentary governments around the world you often have a minority party that stands up and lays out their vision. We actually are going through a conflict where the President has laid out a plan, the majority leader has laid out a plan, we are following that plan, we have won the first part of the war, and we are doing our level best to win the peace as rapidly as possible, secure freedom for the Iraqi people, and bring our men and women home. That is the game plan. And there are lots of details to it, but that is the general game plan.

But the problem we have is that there is nothing united about the Democratic side of this debate in terms of whether or not the war on terror is critical, in terms of whether or not we should have gone into Iraq, in terms of whether or not Saddam is an evil tyrant and dictator that we should have taken down. The only thing the Democrats seem united on is that the enemy is in the White House and majority leader's office of the United States House of Representatives.

That is not the kind of leadership that I think the American people expect from the minority party. Thank goodness it is not the type of leadership that the President and the majority leader are giving.

I want to tell my colleagues as we start the opportunity for some of the other Members to express their views about the partisan nature of a lot of attacks on our President and our majority leader, I want to tell you about a great speech that Ronald Reagan gave known as the Westminster Speech, when he went to the British Parliament June 8, 1982.

He was referring back to World War II when he said that the island was really struck with terror and the potential for being taken over. Ronald Reagan said Winston Churchill exclaimed about British adversaries, ``What kind of a people do they think we are?''

That is a great question to ask about the international terrorists. What kind of people do they think we are? Well, Britain's adversaries found out what extraordinary people the British are, but all the democracies paid a terrible price for allowing the dictators to underestimate us. We dare not make that same mistake again.

So let us ask ourselves as Churchill, and then later Reagan said, What kind of people do we think we are? That is the message that we are trying to send international terrorists. What kind of people do the American people think we are? And are you more comfortable, ultimately, with the plans and the policies, the determination, the extraordinary courage of President Bush and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), or are you more comfortable turning it over to a disarrayed party that has no policy other than to attack the White House and the majority leader's office.

What kind of people do Americans think we are? That is what the international terrorists want to know.

Osama bin Laden said several years ago that as soon as the blood starts flowing, the Americans would pull out; and yet appeasement in the Lord Chamberlain style seems to be the policy of many of our Democratic colleagues and friends, not all but many. And I would state that we have got to stand up and we have got to insist that our majority leader not come under attack here on the House floor for the great things that he has done, for standing by our President, for standing by our troops, and for leading the effort to make sure that the wherewithal is there in Iraq to complete the war and to continue going after international terrorists elsewhere around the globe.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, if I may, I want to show Americans the quote that the gentleman just referred to. This is from our minority leader, who is a wonderful woman. She is a great leader from California, but we sometimes usually disagree with her policies when it comes to big issues in American politics. This is what she said and I think it is important:

``Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.''

All over America there are candidates running for President on the other ticket claiming that President Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in 2002 in Iraq. Here, 4 years earlier, our current minority leader is telling the American people her assessment of the situation.

The question is whether George W. Bush, having spent a year or two in the White House, should have known more than leading Congress members 6 years into the process. So if the gentleman will continue, we have got some other speakers, if we can get to them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson). I want to reiterate what he said because the whole last hour was a lot of our Democratic colleagues just terrified and enormously angry at our majority leader because he thinks that somehow he called them unpatriotic. This is not about whether you are patriotic or not. Actually, our majority leader, to quote him accurately, and none of them quoted our leader, but on July 25 of this year what he said was: ``When criticized for these comments, the Democrats said we were questioning their patriotism. Not so. The Democrats' problem is not a lack of patriotism. It is a lack of seriousness. They do not hate their country. They just refuse to lead it.''

I will never call the Democratic party unpatriotic, but I will call their current leadership unfit to face the serious challenge of the 21st century. This is not about who is patriotic. We have got 435 voting patriotic Members of this body. This is about whether the American people trust a Churchill or a Chamberlain to lead this fight, a Reagan or a McGovern during the Cold War. This is about whether they trust George W. Bush or the appeasement wing of the Democratic party. That is what the debate is about.

With that, I would like to very quickly have one more quote if I can and then recognize our friend from Florida. I want to point out the difference between the last minority leader, who, again, we often did not agree with, and the current minority leader.

The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), when he was minority leader, said on September 17, right after the terrorist attacks, the following: ``The terrorists who did this want us to break up and fight with one another and that is the last thing we are going to do. We are going to fight together with the President and the people who have been heroic and courageous and wonderful, and we are going to win this.'' That is former Leader Gephardt.

One more thing he said. ``It is the American political tradition that politics ought to stop at the water's edge.'' What our current minority leader says, and again we respect her, we just disagree with her judgment, ``I am devastated,'' the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) recalls saying on the morning after the bombing began in Baghdad, ``by the fact that we are going to war.'' In other words, actually prosecuting the war on terrorism in Iraq was terribly offensive to her.

With that, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida, and I want everybody to be able to see exactly what the minority leader the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) actually said. She said it on May 6, 2002, on the Democratic show, Miles Benson. ``I don't really consider ourselves at war,'' Pelosi said.

Now, Americans can decide whether they think we are at war or not, but I will tell my colleagues this points out an interesting distinction to me because forever when we really have a war going on, and most of us know when we are at war, it is not hard to tell, most of us are divided between one extreme of hawks and one extreme of doves on the war.

It seems like most of the Democratic party are people running for President, the people that come down here and speak on Iraq every day, they are divided, too, between doves and ostriches, but the fact of the matter is, like a dove, you cannot fly away from terrorist attacks, and like an ostrich, putting your head in the sand will not protect you from the terrorist activity.

Why do terrorists hate us so bad? This is one of the things all of us Americans have so much trouble understanding, and I will tell my colleagues that just like the Nazis hated us, just like the Communists hated us, the fact of the matter is they are very jealous, because, after all, as they see it, we are rich, they are poor. Our people are well-fed, while their people are often hungry. We are technologically advanced, while they are mired in unsophisticated ways. We are strong, while they are weak. Our wives and daughters are free to pursue diverse careers or home making as they choose, while theirs are treated as chattel. We have individual freedoms secured by a Constitution; they are enslaved by dictators and violent religious zealots. They hate us.

Terrorists throughout the world hate us. We have to get used to it. We are at war, despite the minority leader's judgment.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to another gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess). We have several great gentlemen from Texas here tonight.

Well, I thank the gentleman for those comments.

Mr. Speaker, we have been reminding some of our Democrat colleagues of the irresponsible positions that they have taken on the war on terror and the war on Iraq. But, in fairness, not all of the Democrats in this country have been totally irresponsible. For example, the former minority leader, before the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), Congressman Gephardt, on September 13 in the year 2001, 2 days after the bombing, said the following: ``There was no air and no light between the President and Congress and the two parties.'' In other words, we were together at that point on the war on terror.

And just recently our colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall), said, and I quote, ``Responsible Democrats should carefully avoid using the language of failure. It is false. It can be unforgivably self-fulfilling.'' So there are responsible things being said, but they are in the minority and they are being drowned out.

Before I turn to my colleague from Tennessee, I want to say that more like the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority leader, is the position of the last Secretary of State under President Clinton. And let me first state that the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs is headed by Madeleine Albright, who recently returned from a fact-finding tour in Iraq, and what they found was that throughout the north, the south, and in Baghdad, secular religious Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish groups in both urban and rural areas there were what they called a newly formed umbrella movement. The Iraqi Coalition for Democracy said, ``We already see the positive results that the Americans have brought. We are free to talk to you, to organize a movement and party, free to meet and demonstrate. And all this was made possible by the Americans.''

And almost at the same time, Secretary Albright, violating the old rule of not playing partisan politics against your own country while men and women are in the fields while you are overseas, said the following, and she said it on French radio and she spoke in French. Here is what she said, translated into English: ``It is difficult to be in France and criticize my government, but I am doing so because Bush and the people working for him have a foreign policy that is not good for America, not good for the world.''

Thank you, Secretary Albright, for traveling the world and basically encouraging people that wish us no good.

And I would note finally that one of the other great terror threats on the

planet is North Korea, and Secretary Albright's great contribution in North Korea during her administration was to actually help facilitate the use of nuclear capabilities for power generation in North Korea. Not the kind of thing that has really been productive.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to a friend and colleague and marvelous spokesperson for the conservative and Republican-principled cause, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this.

Again, to point out, the two big debates tonight are not whether or not you are patriotic, the question is whether you are fit and responsible in the fight against the war on terror. The sad thing for a lot of us that enjoy working with our Democratic colleagues is that traditionally when there is an international war going on and America is heavily involved, and our security and lives are potentially at stake, are you a hawk and tend towards the hawkish side, or are you a dove and tend towards the dovish side, but in much of the Democratic caucus, the debate is between whether or not you are a dove or an ostrich.

The terrorists came and found us on September 11, and they will do it again. Fortunately, there are some responsible Democrats that say responsible things. Unfortunately, we have not seen a lot of leadership out of the minority leader's office. I want to share a quote that talks about the fight to water down the resolution to fight the war on terror in Iraq. Minority leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), fought to tone down support for Bush and delete other passages opposed by antiwar Democrats.

But at the same time, you have the second ranking person in the Democratic caucus, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) who basically said he would vote for the bill that his leader opposed. I am glad there are Members who put partisan politics aside and support our President, even though all of us have questions how we can do things better. That ultimately is not the question.

I want to go back to the question whether or not we are at war with terrorism, and again the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) suggested we are not at war, and that while the war has not been officially declared by the United States Congress, we have not had one since I believe the Korean War, in over 50 years, this war is a declared war. The terrorists declared this war on the United States, and they did it in a resounding, ugly, atrocious way on September 11.

But this threat is not new. In 1986 during the great Libya debate in the House of Commons, Lady Thatcher defended American's strike against Libya as she said, ``Terrorism thrives on a free society. The terrorist uses the feelings in a free society to sap the will of a civilization to resist. If the terrorist succeeds, he has won and the whole of free society has lost.'' Like Lord Churchill, Lady Thatcher is prescient, and she issued warnings a decade before the war was launched on America, much like Prime Minister Netanyahu in his book Fighting the War on Terrorism warned that ultimately the target of international religious zealot terrorism is not Israel, they are the temporary target. Ultimately, the great Satan is the United States.

We were told in 1995 by Prime Minister Netanyahu that we would, in fact, be the target. But we do not have to believe our friends and allies on the topic of terrorism being a threat to our children, our grandchildren and our very civilization, if fact, it was over a decade ago that Osama bin Laden declared, ``We with God's help call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans, and plunder their money whenever and wherever they find it. We also call on Muslim leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil supporters aligned with them, and to displace those who are behind them so they may learn a lesson.''

We have been warned over and over again that they are coming to do us evil. We know it, and yet putting our heads in the sand is not an effective response, and hope is not a strategy.

Winston Churchill said in the 1930s, warning about Hitler's Germany, if you give into aggression, there will be end to humiliation you have to suffer.

Remember, it was Abraham Lincoln who basically said in terms of having to complete the war to put the Union back together, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

But again, we have great leadership from our President in very difficult, very challenging times. We have wonderful support and leadership from our majority leader who came under intense attack tonight, and where is the plan of the opponents of the President, where is the plan of the opponents of our majority leader, where is the plan of the opponents of the people who want to prosecute, fight and win the war on terror and to establish a free constitutional democracy in Iraq that is not a threat?

Well, candidly, the Democratic party is very divided. The gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) split from his own father in criticism his father leveled against President Bush for attacking Iraq. The gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) said the country is better off without Saddam Hussein. His quotes are, ``I do not agree with his stance,'' speaking about his father. ``I believe that the United Nations needs to be a viable international organization, and the only way it is viable is if its proclamations and resolutions are enforced.''

Despite all that warning about the fact that we cannot wait on permission from people in the U.N. to protect ourselves, there are still people attacking the President for the preemptive war on terrorists. This is a responsive war given the fact that Saddam Hussein has tried to export terrorism at every opportunity.

It is not just the Democrats fight amongst themselves, sometimes the same Democrat is on both sides of the issue, like General Wesley Clark, depending on what day it was. Early in the campaign, he could not decide whether he was fully supportive of the President and our troops, or whether he would have voted against the resolution. It just depends on which version of General Clark's statements that we hear, now as he is running for President, and again using partisan rhetoric in trying to undermine the President in a time of war.

Governor Dean has no such problem. He has been very consistent. In that old battle of hawks versus doves, the fact of the matter is that I think it is pretty clear that Mr. Dean is in fact on the ostrich side of that debate. He opposes the war, he opposes the doctrine of preemptive war, which means we have to wait, according to the doctrine of Mr. Dean, who is apparently one of the frontrunners for nomination for President, we have to wait until the next set of bombs, perhaps filled with nuclear weapons, hits an urban center in New York or Detroit. Maybe we have to wait until poison water in Los Angeles or in Miami poisons millions of our citizens. Terrorists maybe will have to drop nerve gas on population centers in Atlanta or Seattle before we can defend ourselves, and even at that point Governor Dean regularly suggests that we need to ask the United Nations before we defend ourselves.

Let me remind Members that means that Libya, led by Colonel Quadafi, who declared basically a terrorist war on America 15 years ago, Libya controls the chairmanship of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. Maybe we should have to ask Syria, a state that sponsors terrorism on a regular basis and that serves on the Security Council of the United Nations, one of the top 15 votes in the United Nations. We should not have to ask for permission to defend ourselves.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say, hopefully, this debate can return to not who said what when, but who believes we need to stand up and fight to do the right thing to protect Americans to secure our interests and to ultimately bring our men and women from Iraq home as we continue to prosecute this war on terror.

I will go back to what I started with tonight, in a great speech President Reagan gave to the British Parliament in 1982 called the Westminster Speech, he said, ``During the dark days of the Second World War, when this island was incandescent with courage, Winston Churchill exclaimed about Britain's adversaries, `What kind of a people do they think we are?' ''

Mr. Speaker, all over the world, terrorists are watching to see what kind of people we think we are. Ultimately, it is the President of the United States, sometimes imperfectly, ultimately it is the majority leader and it is the leadership of the Republican Party in the United States House that the terrorists fear and know can defeat them, and the whole world is watching to see whether we back down to this terrorist threat.

Mr. Speaker, I know what kind of people I think Americans think we are. We are ready for this challenge, and it is not easy; but the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and President Bush are our leaders.

Mr. Chairman, first I want to thank the chairman and his committee for the wonderful job they have done in empowering the White House, and the President's team and our military for the wonderful prosecution of this very difficult war.

Second, I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) for the courage he has shown to stand up and do the right thing for the American taxpayer, and yet continue to help the White House and our military successfully prosecute the aftermath of the war.

Third, I want to thank God. I want to thank God for President Bush's team that has done such a terribly important job in the aftermath of September 11 in Iraq. In particular Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, just to name a few.

I remember in Washington's first farewell address, he warned all of us about entering into ``entangling alliances'' oversees. The second President of the United States, John Adams, said ``America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.''

But on September 11, all of us recognized that this is a much smaller world, because monsters found America and tried to destroy us, and they are going to do it again. The next attack could be from a vial of nerve gas, a nuclear weapon, a chemical or other biological weapon that may be built in the hills of Afghanistan or the deserts of Iraq. We understand that. We recognize that, and we fully support the prosecution of the war.

I will tell you that for some 220 years, my view is that America has been the moral conscience of the world. I will tell you that at times in this very difficult global-terrorist-threat environment, we will have to be the world's policeman in certain regions.

We will never be able to be the world's nanny. When it comes to building a nation's infrastructure, when that nation has the type of oil availability and resources that Iraq does, we ought to do the right thing by the American taxpayer.

I believe that President Bush is 100 percent right. The oil fields belong to the Iraqi people. But I also believe that the infrastructure, the roads, the bridges, the hospitals, the schools that we will build, the electric grids, also belong to the Iraqi people, and it is fitting that America lead the way and that we help the Iraqi people establish, for the first time, a real, serious infrastructure that can help their people survive and thrive, and that we help them with our moral leadership, teaching them about democracy, teaching them how to be prosperous and peaceful, things like free trade, low tax rates, respect for private property and individual freedoms, from the right to speak or choose your own religion.

But ultimately, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the American taxpayer is owed nothing less than to say with respect to building infrastructure or nation-building, that it is only right that our children not bear the brunt of the cost of building schools, hospitals and roads ultimately in Iraq.

The proposal of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), I think, does a marvelous job in balancing the needs that the administration has to successfully prosecute the aftermath of the war to make our troops successful so we can bring them home. But it also respects the challenges that face America's taxpayers.

Finally, we should help Iraq build for the future. We should adopt principles of prosperity and freedom, but, ultimately, we should never be their nanny or be the only people spending money to build their country.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend the Altamonte Springs Patriots for winning the Babe Ruth World Series Championship for Age 16 and Under. These twelve young women along with their coaches and parents should be extraordinarily proud.

The Patriots embody teamwork. They attend schools throughout Orange and Seminole counties in Central Florida including Lake Brantly, Lake Mary, Seminole, Orangewood Christian, Central Florida Christian Academy, and RBR Academy. Many have played together since age 10. At age 12, they competed in little league softball and made it to the Florida State Tournament.

On their journey to win the Babe Ruth World Series Championship, the Patriots won 19 of their final 20 games. The team raised $6,000 to finance their World Series trip to Louisville. In the championship game, Anna-Maria Jordan pitched seven innings, allowing only two runs while Natalie Ruff led the offense with a fourth inning two-run single.

On behalf of the people of the 24th District of Florida, I would like to congratulate the following champions for their outstanding triumph: Lauren Bennett, Jennifer Garaffa, Nicole Hall, Arielle Jenkins, Anna- Maria Jordan,

Gloria Jordan, Alexandra Lofton, Natalie Ruff, Jessie Sadlowsky, Ashley Tabor, Danielle Valentino, and Andrea Wain, Mark Valentino, Manager, Gary Wain, Coach, Mark Ruff, Coach, David Phillips, Coach.

I wish the Altamonte Springs Patriots continued academic and athletic success.

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to rise tonight and join the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) as we have established the Washington Waste Watchers. Ronald Reagan once defined the American taxpayer as somebody who works for the Federal Government but does not have to take the civil service exam. Unfortunately, he was far too correct. According to Americans for Tax Reform, the average American family has to spend 193 days working to pay their total cost of government: Federal, State and local taxes and the regulatory burden. 130 of those 193 days are the cost of funding the Federal Government. Imagine working 193 days for the average American. That is more than half the year by far. It is time that our families were able to spend most of their time working for their families and themselves and not for the Federal Government, the Federal bureaucracy.

We are facing a time of a dramatically expanding new deficit. We understand the need on homeland security. We understand the aftermath of September 11. We understand the need to support our troops over in Iraq. But the bottom line is that, here at home, we have a lot of spending that is simply out of control. The best place to attack this spending, in our view, in the Washington Waste Watchers Caucus, is to go after wasteful spending, is to look at programs that simply are not being well run, are not efficient or are meaningless altogether. There are many, many examples of this. Over time, the Washington Waste Watchers will be reminding not just our constituents but we will be reminding people who are the stewards of the American taxpayers in all of the different Federal agencies that they do not want to be the next group or the next individual embarrassed because of what they have done on their watch with the taxpayer dollars.

There are lots of examples. I want to go through a few tonight. In the Pell grant program, for example, if ideally run, it helps empower many thousands of American men and women get through college. An administrator at the Beacon Career Institute in my home State of Florida, however, defrauded the Department of Education of nearly $1 million. The administrator submitted false documents to justify the disbursement of $720,000 in improper Pell grants. This money could have been used to pay for some 600 Pell grants when combined with the other $2.4 million in fraud. The Department of Education estimates that in the year 2001, some $336 million in Pell grants were improperly disbursed, given to the wrong people. That is wrong. Unfortunately, some of our friends in the Democratic Party still want to raise your taxes.

If you look at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for example, there is a lot of fraud that is denying legitimate Indian needs out there in America. In New Mexico, for example, a Bureau of Indian Affairs bookkeeper embezzled $66,000 of Federal money intended for the Wingate High School. Also in Arizona, the neighboring State, two Bureau of Indian Affairs bureaucrats skimmed over $60,000 intended for Indian education programs. Again, a lot of our Democratic colleagues still want to raise your taxes.

In the Virgin Islands, if you look at the Office of Insular Affairs, in the Virgin Islands the Department of Health failed to effectively administer grants that total over $30.5 million. Errors included failure to engage in competitive bidding, improper land acquisition, undocumented cost claims and even the failure to complete a health clinic. Again, a lot of our Democratic friends still want to raise your taxes.

Finally, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. A lot of my colleagues understand in the aftermath of tornadoes, wind storms, and the recent hurricane that came up through the east coast, we want an emergency management agency to help people in severe need as they are rebuilding their communities. We want to make sure that police and fire and fundamental services are taken care of. But in response to the most recent wind storm, do you know what the Federal Emergency Management Administration is funding in this part of the world right outside of the Capitol here? Free stress reduction and personal growth classes as a response to the hurricane. They ask questions like, does stress make you feel unbalanced? Do you sometimes feel sad, depressed or empty? Do worrisome thoughts make you feel overwhelmed? By the way, if so, FEMA, the emergency management administration, thinks it has got an answer for you. What does it have? Multicultural initiatives, presenting a series that will allow discussion of who we are, where we are from, why we are here and how we are doing, a Federal program supposedly responding to emergencies in our States.

Multicultural town meetings. We have future workshops to address the issues of diversity, peace and violence versus nonviolence. These may be worthwhile things, but do you think that your tax dollar in the emergency management administration should be spent on them? Finally, anger management programs are being funded with your tax dollars in the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

Lastly, I will tell you that they are using your tax dollars, supposedly used to respond to emergencies, to do things like a yearlong celebration of trees, of gardens and other healing places. Ladies and gentlemen, some of them on the Democratic side still want to raise your taxes.

We are going to go after the waste in government.

Mr. Speaker, it is really a delight to be here tonight on a very special occasion for those of us in Florida, especially central Florida. It is my pleasure to rise and pay tribute to an extraordinary young woman from Florida's 24th District, which I serve, Miss America 2004, Ericka Dunlap.

Being crowned Miss America last Saturday was a historic moment for the State of Florida as Ericka was the first African American to win the Miss Florida pageant in 68 years. By the way, she is the second Floridian to be crowned Miss America in its storied 83-year history.

For Ericka, this achievement means a lot individually and personally; a $50,000 scholarship that will aid her in accomplishing her undergraduate degree at the University of Central Florida and continue on to her dream of law school, and this will afford her the honor of a national platform to discuss a number of nationally important issues to her and all of us, including, as she puts it, cultural diversity and inclusiveness.

While winning pageants is nothing new for Ericka, she has collected more than 110 trophies and 60 crowns since she started competing at age 6, an amazing record, her off-the-runway accomplishments are equally as awesome and impressive. She is a Dean's Scholar, a recipient of both the National Coca-Cola Scholarship and the Metropolitan Urban League National Scholarship, and she is a beneficiary of UCF, University of Central Florida, McKnight Center of Excellence's Thurgood Marshall Achievers Society.

Ericka, who is a former student senator with an interest in pursuing a career in public service or becoming a top-flight sports and entertainment attorney, is also a member of the prestigious UCF President's Leadership Council, whose members are selected for their excellence in leadership, scholarship and service to the University of Central Florida and the Orlando community.

As our president of the University of Central Florida put it, ``At UCF our pride in Ericka began long before the Miss Florida and Miss America pageants. We were extremely proud of her academic success, her volunteering on campus and serving as a member of the President's Leadership Council. Being crowned as Miss America was the icing on the cake for us, since it was national recognition for the poised, caring and intellectual young woman we have come to know.''

Mr. Speaker, just this last July I actually attended a ground- breaking for Partnership II Building at the University of Central Florida Research Park, and I had the pleasure of meeting Ericka. At that time Ericka signed an autograph, Miss Florida, for my 11-year-old son Tommy. He was thrilled to receive it, and he recognized he was in the presence of a star right off the bat. She is pleasant, she is attractive, she is wonderfully friendly, she is brilliant, and she is motivated, and I was glad and honored to meet her myself.

Mr. Speaker, finally, I expect in the year to follow our Nation will also come to know this exceptional young woman from Orlando. She plans to use her crown, as she puts it, as ``a symbolic propeller to take cultural diversity to new heights,'' and she continues to set new benchmarks for her own success, as well as our collective ability to treat all of our members of society with respect and dignity and love that is the bedrock of our Nation.

Congratulations, Ericka. We are thrilled to have you. We are thrilled to have Miss America be from Florida and from central Florida especially.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it shall be in order at any time without intervention of any point of order to consider in the House H.R. 3161; that the bill shall be considered as read for amendment; that the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage without intervening motion, except: number one, 1 hour of debate on the bill equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce; and, number two, one motion to recommit.