Former President George Bush spoke to a warm, receptive crowd Monday morning in his keynote address to the Direct Marketing Association.
In a speech laced with sympathetic asides about direct marketing ("My wife, Barbara, has a Black Belt in shopping" and loves catalogs) and homey references about his son, Bush sought to praise and soothe a crowd clearly hungry for reassurance.
"Regrettably, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the tentacles of terror entered the mail system. Every American has an obligation to stand up to these cowards, we just cannot give up," Bush said, as the crowd applauded him for the first of seven times.
"You must feel you’re in unchartered waters, that answers are in short supply," he said, acknowledging the terrorist attacks and anthrax were "superimposed on an economic downturn."
How can the postal service restore consumer confidence?
"I think you’re going to be in a very tough position until you know what anthrax can do and can’t do," Bush said. "The government is trying very hard to get these answers."
The economy is a challenge--but less debt, recent interest-rate cuts and free trade--provide a good base on which to build recovery, said the self-proclaimed architect of Nafta.
The war President George W. Bush is waging is "fundamentally different" from the Persian Gulf conflict because "we could see the enemy," he said. They weren’t "huddling in caves."
Calling himself "the proudest father in the United States," he said, "the rule of law will prevail over the rule of the jungle, .We will win the war against terrorism."
