We interrupt your weather forecast for this press conference from President George W. Bush.
I thank God that we are able to be here to day in good health and good spirits. I have a brief message for you, the American people, after which my press secretary will answer a few questions.
It is a time we face now, with a fear greater, more looming, more everpresent than ever. And that time is now. But with God’s help we will prevail.
It is a time when young Americans are being toyed with; their teachers underprepared and, some argue, underpaid; their parents undereducated, underpaid and overwhelmed with the reality that there is more to this life they sought out than what they envisioned when they undertook that most sacred vow of Marriage. God blessed them then and He blesses them now, but sometimes, to some, it is not enough to have Our Savior and Creator’s blessing.
Sitting in this room as a testimony to this are two children, Hanna and Joseph. As I look into their faces I can tell you only this: it is a time we face now where, to some, the system has been a failure in that most desperate sense of the word: time. May God bless you both, Hanna and Joseph.
It is a time, though, of unprecedented fortune, of happiness, or rejoicing and of freedom. A people are free, and with that comes new hope we could not conceive when this administration took over with God’s blessing.
Right now a woman in Iraq is laying the groundwork for a school for women. Disgusted by a country that subjugated women for centuries on behalf of a God who requires that young boys kill themselves with no more than rusty nails and a transmitter, she sought personal freedoms we in this country take for granted. And she has God’s blessing, and the blessing of this administration, that she will continue to persevere in the face of discriminiation.
There is a boy in a hospital in Iraq who has lost half his body to a bomb some say came from those soldiers sworn to protect him and his family. I will not stand here and tell you why this happened; God’s Will is known only to Him. But what I can tell you is that prosthetic devices to give this boy what life he can have … those devices are being provided free of charge. May God bless those who have given him this second chance at life.
There is a man on death row in Texas, sentenced for a crime he fervently holds he did not commit. May God have mercy on his soul as He welcomes this man into Heaven when he has paid his debt to God.
It is a time of great struggle, of great pain, of great hardship and great shortcomings. But in that struggle is triumph over evil, and in that pain there is victory, and in that hardship there is strength of chracter to be found. And in that greatest of shortcomings we realize most truly and deeply how great out debt and shortcomings are to our Lord God Almighty.
Thank you. May God Bless you, and may God Bless America.
::reporters clamor for the press secretary’s attention::
I … have just been informed that my presence is required elsewhere. I have time for one brief question.
“Mr. Secretary, the President mentioned a time of great pain and hardship in his speech. Can you give any further details on this?”
The President mentioned several times that we are in a time of great turmoil. It is this administration’s belief that with God’s help we will triumph over it. Thank you for your time.