BUSH: I don’t want to give you any tidbits for fear that you may not pay attention when I actually stand up there and deliver it.
But...
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
BUSH: You think he will?
(LAUGHTER)
I’m looking forward to giving it. I want to talk about what I intend to do.
You know, we’ve got a great record when you think about it. Led the world in the war on terror. The world is safer as a result of the actions we’ve taken. Afghanistan is no longer run by the Taliban. Saddam Hussein sits in a prison cell. Moammar Gadhafi has gotten rid of his weapons. Pakistan is an ally in the war on terror.
There’s more work to be done in fighting off these terrorists. I clearly see that. I understand that we’ve got to use all resources at our disposal to find and bring these people to justice.
And when you think about domestic politics, we’ve faced a recession, had tax cuts that encouraged economic growth and vitality. We helped reform the education system with the No Child Left Behind Act. We’ve reformed Medicare -- first administration ever to get Congress to move forward on Medicare reform. We’ve got trade promotion authorities to open up more markets for U.S. entrepreneurs and farmers and manufacturers.
We’ve had a great record.
But the only reason to even talk about the record is to say, give us a chance to move the country forward. We’re people who can get the job done. We’ve proven to you we can get the job done. And there’s more work to be done.
And I’ll talk about that in the convention. In other words, this is going to be a forward-looking speech.
Last question. I know you all are hungry.
QUESTION: Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has proposed a bill to radically restructure the intelligence community. He splits up the CIA; gives complete budgetary authority to the new NID, as well as personnel, hiring-and-firing authority and more; takes a number of intelligence collection agencies out of the Pentagon and transmits them over to the NID.
I wonder what you think of that proposal and what is the status of the White House effort on this front?
BUSH: I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen his proposal.
He was on TV yesterday morning talking about his ideas, and I’m sure he’s going to send it over to us to take a look at it.
There’s a lot of ideas moving around. And we’ve got a lot of smart people looking at the best way to fashion intelligence so that the president and his Cabinet secretaries have got the ability to make good judgment calls on behalf of the American people.
