George H. W. Bush
Forty-first President of the United States.
My view, is let Mike Dukakis go around there and talk about pink slips, despair, pessimism in the United States. I'll be the guy out there talking about hope and opportunity and challenge, and the fact that the United States is the best, the fairest, the most decent nation on the face of the earth. Let them apologize for America, and let me lead her to new greatness.
Yet freedom is not the same as independence. Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.
"I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy."
A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easy-goingness about each other's attitudes and way of life.
"And I'll be honest with you, it's a joy to serve with a president who does not apologize for the United States of America."
We love your adherence to democratic principles and to the democratic process.
"Bush, who ... came of age in World War II, instinctively identified with the crew members and captain on the Vincennes. He said he would not apologize for the incident. "I will never apologize for the United States of America!" he frequently declares in campaign speeches."
"[WW II] helped formulate his view of America as a military power: clearly in the right, with no shades of gray. "I will never apologize for the United States of America", Mr. Bush has said frequently."
The American people await action. They didn't send us here to bicker. They ask us to rise above the merely partisan. "In crucial things, unity" — and this, my friends, is crucial.
It just isn't going to work, and it's very interesting that the man who invested this type of what I call a voodoo economic policy...
This is an historic moment. We have in this past year made great progress in ending the long era of conflict and cold war. We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order, a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the U.N.'s founders. We have no argument with the people of Iraq. Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety.
I count my blessings for the fact I don't have to go into that pit that John Major stands in, nose-to-nose with the opposition, all yelling at each other.
Frequently misquoted as "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots."
"I will never apologize for the United States," the Vice President declared recently. "I will stand up for her."
This is America: the Knights of Columbus, the Grange, Hadassah, the Disabled American Veterans, the Order of Ahepa, the Business and Professional Women of America, the union hall, the Bible study group, LULAC, "Holy Name"—a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.
We must act on what we know. I take as my guide the hope of a saint: In crucial things, unity; in important things, diversity; in all things, generosity.
I don't have to stand here and defend the campaign of 1988. I'd be perfectly prepared to do it, but I was elected. I put confidence in the American people, their ability to sort through what is fair and what is unfair, what is ugly and what is un-ugly, and be as positive as possible.
Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the identity of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.
This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.
You don't have to go to college to be a success ... We need the people who run the offices, the people who do the hard physical work of our society.