Political Quotes

“I join my colleagues to express my horror at the recent string of church fires across the South. More importantly, we join together to do something about it. There have been more than 37 suspicious fires in black and multiracial churches in small towns across America in the last 18 months, 7 in the last 2 weeks, including 2 in the last 2 days in Mississippi. For the past year we have debated about the role of government. Government is brave men and women putting out fires in communities, it is police officers and the Justice Department fighting to stop crime. The effort we announce today is a good example of how government, the private sector, and people can join together to accomplish a common goal. Government works. Government works when people like President Clinton step up to the bully pulpit and turn this issue into a national challenge, and teaches us that we have to return to the value that made our country so strong, that we have to fight the fire of hate that drove people to commit these outrages. Government works when my colleagues and I come together to create the energy of firefighters to help people prevent church arsons. As one minister put it, someone who is trying to do us harm in one sense really has done us a lot of good. These fires have drawn people together, both black and white. These acts of hatred have been transformed into gestures of love.”