Manual Miranda

Conservative Political Action Conference

Washington, DC
February 10, 2006

Click here for David Keene's introductory remarks.

I learned about this at 3:30 today so I haven’t written anything down, but I think I can rise to it.

I would like to thank the members of the board of the ACU, some of who have been very good friends, and all of you here tonight who are disembodied voices on conference calls, e-mail names, who have been very supportive of everything we have done over the past two years, and I also want to take a moment to thank—she doesn’t know it—my former professor at Georgetown—Ambassador [Jeanne] Kirkpatrick. I believe the course was called “Personality in Politics.” (I could probably tell you a few things, no.) And my very good friend, someone who has been very kind to me, Bob Novak. Bob first wrote about me, and used the power of the pen to defend me and it made all the difference really.

Of course, I’m honored to share the award with you, Suzie. It used to be that we said that in this country a man’s humble home was his castle. Suzie’s case has shown that a man’s humble home can be turned by a court into another man’s castle. And that just isn’t right. I’ve said it on radio a score of times that Kelo was perhaps the worst decision of the court since Roe.

I got involved in this fight over the [Judge Charles] Pickering fight. I thought that was an absurd injustice. A man who had testified against the Klan, at risk of his own life, at risk of his family’s life—in the ‘60s in Mississippi, yet he was vilified as a racist. I just didn’t think it was right. And of course, Priscilla Owen, Janice Brown, and all the nominees who were vilified, I didn’t think that was right.

But ultimately what has driven me, I’ll be very brief, what has driven me in the past three years, on top of an instigation here or there to a fight, has been that, well, I wasn’t born in this country. I also worked in Latin America for several years and studied the constitutions of other countries and their legal systems. And I have come to know that our Constitution and our court system is one—just one perhaps—but a very important reason why this country is blessed and great.

And so anything that I have been doing is simply to say thank you to this country that took in my mother and father with two young children. I’ve always thought, by the way, that that was true courage, my father and mother coming to a country and not speaking a word of English and doing great things for themselves.

I’m very grateful. You know folks I have always thought that awards are always really a way to thank a great many people not just the person who receives them. And so, if you applaud me again, I ask you to applaud my wife, who’s put up with a great deal. Thank you all very much.