FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, January 16, 2009

**The Carter Courier**

 

***[Carter in the News]{.underline}***

 

***Carter Wins Transportation Subcommittee Seat***

Congressman John Carter will play an important role in the 111^th^
Congress on national transportation issues for Texas, according to
[KWTX](http://www.kwtx.com/centraltexasvotes/localheadlines/37387634.html)
in Waco. "Our state leads the nation in highway miles and has one of the
largest populations, and to have our transportation needs represented at
the committee level in the House by a single member would place us at a
distinct disadvantage, especially with our incoming President seeking a
major expansion in highway funding," Carter said...

***Marlin officials applaud new jobs to be created from changing old VA
building to prison hospital***\
A \$500,000 grant made possible by Congressman John Carter and Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison will help create new jobs in Marlin, according to
the Waco Tribune (1/16, Dennis). "After a nearly two-year standstill,
officials are taking small steps toward starting the renovation of the
old [Marlin Veteran Affairs
hospital](http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/01/16/01162008wacmarlinva.html).

"Ownership of the former Thomas Connally Veteran Affairs Medical Center
will be officially transferred to the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice in a ceremony at 9:30 a.m. today. The agency will renovate the
facility into a hospital for female prisoners..."

***[Official Releases]{.underline}***

# *CARTER WINS KEY SEAT ON TRANSPORTATION SUBCOMMITTEE*

(WASHINGTON, DC) Texas **Congressman John Carter** (R-31) will be one of
only two Texans in the U.S. House of Representatives to serve on key
transportation committees, and the only Republican, following his
appointment today to the Transportation Subcommittee of the powerful
House Appropriations Committee.

\"I\'m deeply honored, and relieved for the Great State of Texas, to
receive this appointment,\" says Carter, a former state judge from Round
Rock. \"Our state leads the nation in highway miles and has one of the
largest populations, and to have our transportation needs represented at
the committee level in the House by a single member would place us at a
distinct disadvantage, especially with our incoming President seeking a
major expansion in highway funding.\"

Carter, Secretary of the House Republican Conference, was elected to his
fourth term in Congress in November.

***Carter Works with Texas Department of Transportation to Push Lone
Star Highway Projects under Stimulus Plans***

(WASHINGTON, DC) -- **U.S. Rep. John Carter** (R-TX31) is working with
the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) to push Congress for up
to \$6 billion in "shovel ready" highway projects for Texas as part of a
national economic stimulus package.

Carter met with TXDOT officials this week in Washington to discuss the
importance that Texas gets its fair share of any highway infrastructure
economic stimulus funds. Carter is the only Texas Republican serving on
any transportation committee in the House, as a member of the
Transportation Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.

Texas has the highest number of requested highway projects in the nation
to be potentially funded under a national economic stimulus plan, and
the third highest dollar request of any state. TXDOT officials have
submitted 853 projects at a cost of \$6.0184 billion dollars, according
to data from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
All projects submitted for stimulus-funding consideration must be
capable of being contracted within 120 days.

# "It is critical that Texas submitted these highway requests in time for consideration," says Carter, "and equally critical for our state to continue pushing to make sure we get our fair share. Texas has been a 'donor' state every year since the current federal highway funding system was created, historically receiving less than what we pay into the system. We can't allow ourselves to be shortchanged in any economic stimulus plan."

***Temple Fire and Rescue Wins \$433,000 Federal Grant for Additional
Firefighters***

(WASHINGTON, DC) -- **U.S. Rep. John Carter** (R-TX31) today announced
the City of Temple Fire and Rescue will receive a \$433,520 federal
grant to allow the city to hire up to 4 new firefighters.

"More trained firefighters means quicker response time," says Carter,
"and that translates into saved lives and property." The city will
receive the funds under a grant from the Federal Emergency and
Management Agency (FEMA). The SAFER Grant (Staffing for Adequate Fire
and Emergency Response) was created to provide funding directly to fire
departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations in order to
help them increase the number of trained, \"front-line\" firefighters
available in their communities.

Temple City Manager David Blackburn says the program will increase
public safety in Temple. "This grant will put more trained, front-line
firefighters in the stations and on the streets in Temple, which is
exactly what both the federal program and our local strategic plan calls
for," says Blackburn. "I am very appreciative of FEMA for the award of
this grant and to Congressman Carter\'s office for their support and
work on this grant. It will make a difference in Temple."

Temple Station Number 8 will be a direct beneficiary of the new
personnel, according to Chief Lonzo Wallace of Temple Fire and Rescue.
"Temple Fire & Rescue is thankful for being selected as a grant
recipient. This will help us provide necessary resources for our growing
community. This is an important first step as we work towards staffing
firefighters for station #8."

***[Opinions]{.underline}***

# *The 9/11 Presidency* 

# (Written by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board)

-    

Long after George W. Bush boards Marine One next Tuesday bound for
Texas, the enduring image of his epochal eight years will be the
September 20, 2001 evening a relatively new President stood before a
nation traumatized and in mourning.

\"We will direct every resource at our command \-- every means of
diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law
enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of
war \-- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror
network,\" Mr. Bush told a Joint Session of Congress. \"I will not
yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for
freedom and security for the American people.\"

In that moment, he set the standard for the Bush Presidency: To protect
Americans from another 9/11 and hit Islamist terrorists and their
sponsors abroad. Whatever history\'s ultimate judgment, Mr. Bush never
did yield. Nearly all the significant battles of the Bush years \-- the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars, Guantanamo and wiretapping, upheavals in the
Middle East, America\'s troubles with Europe \-- stemmed directly from
his response to the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that
defined his Presidency.

By his own standard, Mr. Bush achieved the one big thing he and all
Americans demanded of his Administration. Not a single man, woman or
child has been killed by terrorists on U.S. soil since the morning of
September 11. Al Qaeda was flushed from safe havens in Afghanistan, then
Iraq, and its terrorist network put under siege around the world. All
subsequent terror attacks hit soft targets and used primitive means. No
one seriously predicted such an outcome at the time.

The Administration\'s achievement goes beyond lives saved to American
confidence restored. Memories fade fast. Recall the fear about imminent
strikes, the anthrax panic and the 98-1 Senate vote for the Patriot Act
in the weeks after 9/11. Americans yearned for leadership that this
President provided. He calmed the fears and urged tolerance at home,
saying on that memorable evening, \"We are in a fight for our
principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them.\"

A measure of the Administration\'s success is the criticism it has drawn
as the threat has seemed more remote. Bush-bashing, whether from the
netroots, David Letterman or the French, would have no resonance in a
country that still feared a terrorist attack. Mr. Bush made a conscious
choice to take no chances with American lives, and to live with the
liberal backlash over waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

His most controversial and difficult decision, the war in Iraq, was
consistent with his post-9/11 doctrine to regard \"any nation that
continues to harbor or support terrorism . . . as a hostile regime\" and
pre-empt threats to America from rogue regimes and proliferators. The
failure to discover WMD gave opponents the opening to claim the war was
fought on false premises, but Bill Clinton, Democrats on Capitol Hill
and every major intelligence service also believed Saddam had WMD.

Other mistakes were inevitably made, and not merely that \"Mission
Accomplished\" banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Persuasion matters
in politics, and Mr. Bush lacked the communication skills to explain his
policies well. The Administration botched the early job in post-Saddam
Iraq, taking too long to empower Iraqis and failing to anticipate the
insurgency. But the successful \"surge\" \-- a decision made against
almost universal opposition in Washington \-- prevented a U.S. defeat
and leaves to Barack Obama a democratic ally gaining strength in a
crucial region.

The slow but indisputable emergence of a free Iraq also shook up an
untenable status quo in the Middle East, the root source of the
terrorist threat. Though Saddam bluffed about his WMD, the U.S.
intervention signaled its seriousness to other proliferators. A.Q.
Khan\'s nuclear network, which flourished in the 1990s, was rolled up in
the wake of Iraq. Moammar Gadhafi gave up Libya\'s nuclear program,
which was far more advanced than previously thought.

Mr. Bush\'s Afghan campaign started brilliantly, toppling the Taliban
despite warnings in Washington that such \"regime change\" was
dangerous. The ability of al Qaeda to reconstitute itself to some degree
along the Afghan-Pakistan border is mainly due to unstable governance in
Pakistan \-- and will be no easier for Mr. Obama. Mr. Bush\'s engagement
with Islamabad did ease Indian-Pakistan tensions, helped to capture KSM
and others, and has allowed U.S. Predators to strike at terror targets
inside Pakistan.

In his second Inaugural, the President declared the U.S. would \"seek
and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every
nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our
world.\" Lebanon\'s Cedar Revolution came a month later. But the
\"freedom agenda\" ran aground against the Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraq
setbacks of 2006 and has never recovered. Still, the idea that freedom
and Islam are compatible has been planted and will not be forever
contained in the region.

On his own post-9/11 terms, Mr. Bush\'s biggest failure has been Iran.
He outsourced diplomacy to the Europeans and U.N. \-- despite his
caricature as a go-it-alone cowboy. But these efforts merely gave the
mullahs cover and years to build their bomb. The President also indulged
Condoleezza Rice\'s illusion that some grand bargain could be found with
Tehran\'s revolutionary regime. The same could be said for his
diplomatic dead end in North Korea.

The President tried smooth talk on Vladimir Putin, with equally poor
results. His famous misreading of the man gave the Kremlin confidence to
repress its own people and intimidate its neighbors without fear of
serious U.S. rebuke. Mr. Bush did stay a stalwart ally to the young
democracies in that region, helping keep Ukraine and Georgia, so far,
out of Moscow\'s reconstituting empire.

For a President charged so often with tarnishing alliances, the state of
our friendships is also worth revisiting. The world didn\'t gang up
against the \"unilateral\" U.S., Jacques Chirac\'s efforts
notwithstanding. On the contrary, though you won\'t hear this from the
media, relations with Europe are stronger than at the beginning of the
Bush years. France, Germany and the U.K. \-- aware of the rising threat
from Russia and their own shortcomings \-- are eager for U.S. support
and leadership, out of self-interest if not any deep love.

In Asia, the Bush Presidency began with a crisis with China over the
downing of a military aircraft, but U.S.-China ties have since been
friendly and stable. Mr. Bush\'s biggest achievement, also overlooked,
is the new alliance with the continent\'s leading democracy, India. This
relationship will help future Administrations check Chinese ambitions
\-- as will strengthened friendships with Japan, South Korea and
Australia.

The postmortems on Mr. Bush\'s foreign policy inevitably note his
comment in the 2000 Presidential debate about \"a humble nation,\"
disinclined to act abroad, to paint him as the unlikely revolutionary.
The future President\'s more telling statement in that debate came in
response to a question about what principles would guide him. He said
he\'d ask himself: \"What\'s in the best interest of our people?\"

A clear conception of national interest shaped his response to the great
security challenge of the early 21st century. After the Clinton decade
in which al Qaeda and proliferation went unchallenged, the Bush
Presidency had to scramble to defend against a terror threat that with
WMD could kill millions of Americans. His decision to fight this as a
\"war,\" and to marshal the means attendant to war, has been
controversial and expensive. But like Harry Truman\'s decisions at the
onset of the Cold War, we suspect more of his policy will survive than
his many critics now admit. (See here, for starters.)

The world remains a very dangerous place. Yet thanks to Mr. Bush\'s
post-9/11 willingness to act decisively, and at the risk of his own
popularity, Americans are safer today than on September 10, 2001.
*(Taken from the Wall Street Journal, Friday, January 16, 2009)*