President Bush Commemorates Foreign Policy Achievements and Presents Medal of Freedom to Ambassador Ryan Crocker
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. I got five days left; be seated. (Laughter.)
Madam Secretary, thank you very much for your kind introduction, and thank you for these beautiful reminders of how fantastic it's been to work with you.
By the way, these are going to be at Southern Methodist University -- (laughter) -- proudly displayed at the presidential center I will build to remind our country of the timeless values of freedom and liberty. And I am honored to take them back to Texas. I'm honored to take my wife back to Texas, too. (Laughter.)
The award you gave Laura, Condi, is well deserved in my unobjective opinion. She has been awesome First Lady. And I'm proud to have been here in Washington. And you've been an awesome friend and a great Secretary of State.
You know, people -- I tell people all the time, they ask me about Condi, and I say, she's like my sister. We've been through a lot together. (Laughter.) And one of the things about her is that she has never lost her great optimism. She's plenty tough when she needed to be tough; she's plenty charming when she needs to be charming. But during the darkest of days, she always had a sense of optimism and constantly reminded me of what is possible and what will happen if we don't lose confidence in fundamental truths. History will say that Condi Rice was one of the great Secretaries of State our country has ever had. (Applause.)
And I thank my friend John Negroponte. I call him Ponte -- you better call him -- (laughter) -- Mr. Secretary. He has done a lot of hard work on behalf of the country, and he has really done it well -- a variety of jobs that have required skill and dedication and courage, and each job he's handled with a lot of class, he really has.
I want to thank the ambassadors who have joined us. Thanks for coming. Appreciate your service to your countries. And I want to thank all those who work here -- veterans and rookies alike. (Laughter.) This is a fabulous department and a vital part of making sure this country remains secure in the long run. And it's been a joy to work with you.
Tonight I'm going to give a farewell address to the American people. It's going to be a short one. (Laughter.) But it's got a lot of meaning to it, as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to urge our nation to continue to engage the world with confidence -- confidence in the transformative power of freedom and liberty.
These are the ideals that gave birth to our own nation -- these universal ideals gave birth to America. And over the past eight years, together we have worked to advance these ideals. And every member of this department can be proud of the results.
In the Middle East, we stood with dissidents and young democracies. Sometimes that was not easy to do. But we stood strong with those young democracies. We outlined a vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.
In Asia, we deepened our alliances with old friends, Japan and South Korea, and we strengthened ties with China. I'm not so sure if this is historically accurate, but we may be the only administration that has had really good ties with Japan, South Korea and China all at the same time.
And we opened a new historic and strategic partnership with India.
In Europe, we expanded NATO to include new democracies from the Baltics to the Balkans. We work in a multilateral fashion to deal with issues like Iran and North Korea.
In Africa, we helped resolve old conflicts and form new partnerships to confront hunger and disease and poverty. I'm often asked, you know, how come you, from Texas, care about Africa? And I remind people -- I'm reminded of one of my first conversations with Condi. And she said, if I'm going to work with you, I want you to make sure you focus on Africa. She gets a lot of credit for the focus on Africa.
I also acted on this timeless belief, to whom much is given, much is required. We have been given a lot in our country. And it's not only in our strategic interests that we deal with hunger and disease, it is in our moral interest that we do so, as well. In the Western Hemisphere, we expanded trade and helped our fellow democracies deliver prosperity and social justice to their people. And around the world, we built a coalition of more than 90 nations to fight terror and advance the cause of freedom in the great ideological struggle of our time.
