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White House Press Briefing by Tony Snow 5/7/07 (Queen Of England)
— Monday, May 07, 2007 — Q Given that, as you said, the Queen doesn't play a political role in Great Britain, was there a particular reason why the President gave such a political speech? MR. SNOW: The President -- was it a political speech, or was it one, in fact, reflecting the closeness and the importance of principle? Q It was a political speech. (Laughter.) MR. SNOW: To you it was. Q I think it was a political speech. It spoke a great deal about the war, the war on terror, the war in Iraq. The Queen's speech reflected something that was not political. When you compare the two, and the tone of the two, one was political and one was not. MR. SNOW: As a matter of fact, if you take a look -- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven -- eight paragraphs, there are nine paragraphs -- I believe one referred to it, and there was nothing directly mentioning Iraq, although there was talk about democracy, liberty, defending liberty against tyranny and terror. It mentions killing the innocent to advance a hateful ideology, whether it's in New York, London, Kabul or Baghdad. You may call that political, but that is, in fact, a reflection of what's going on the world. And we have seen evidence of that. And we've also seen evidence of terrorists to continue to do that sort of thing. You saw the Zawahiri tape over the weekend. Well, what did he talk about? He was celebrating in his own view -- what he said was celebrating terrorism. At one point he said, "Fie on moderation, I thank Allah for the bounty of extremism, militancy and terrorism and everything else we are labeled with." And he talked about that in some considerable detail. What he tried to do is manipulate American political sentiments, a big, long section on Malcolm X that was designed to try to foment hatred within the United States. And he called for a rebellion by minority groups in this country. And at the same time, what he tried to do was to misconstrue democratic debate in this country -- small "d" -- in such a way as to try to take political advantage of statements that Senator Reid has made. So what you have is you have a determined enemy that, in fact, wants to kill Americans. One of the things he expressed some unhappiness about is that he wants to kill 200,000 to 300,000 Americans. Now, again, if you think it is political to make reference to the fact that that is extremism and it is a live force in our lives and is a real consideration, then you so may label it. But on the other hand, there was nothing in here that tried to draw the Queen into any direct political conflicts in this country other than to remind and thank her for the support of the very principles that are the bedrock of the Anglo American system, which have to do with individual liberties, the rule of law and a long chain of events and innovations that stretch back from the Magna Carta to the present.
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 5:41 AM
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