Iowa delegation says Iraq key part of Bush speech

Members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation say there was an electric moment last night during the President’s State of the Union speech to Congress. It came when Bush honored a couple whose son died serving in Iraq, and the Iraqi woman sitting beside the First Lady turned around and embraced the grieving mother. Congressman Tom Latham was sitting on the House floor, just below the First Lady in the balcony. “Everyone on the floor had tears in their eyes,” Latham says. “I had purple ink on my finger and the woman from Iraq looked down at me and smiled and said ‘Thank you’ and that was an incredible moment.” Latham, a republican from Alexander, was among a group of lawmakers who painted their fingers to match the ink that marked the index finger of Iraqi voters. “It was very, very emotional for all of us and showed what people who believe in freedom, what they can accomplish,” Latham says. Congressman Jim Leach, a republican from Iowa City, watched the speech on television, and he says the embrace of the mother of the fallen U.S. soldier and the Iraqi voter was the central moment of the speech. “There is a serendipity to all occasions, and in this case this particular little gesture symbolized the best of the instincts of the president even though it was a gesture not made by the president,” Leach says. President Bush also laid out dire predictions for the future of Social Security if reforms aren’t enacted. Congressman Steve King, a republican from Kiron, sees rough seas ahead for the president’s ideas. “One of the things that was instructive to me was the watch the reactions of the members of Congress and clearly, it’s become a partisan issue on overhauling and saving Social Security,” King says.Congressman Jim Nussle, a republican from Manchester who’s chairman of the House Budget Committee, says he was pleased the president stressed the fiscal discipline that’ll be necessary to fix the system. “There’s no question that he has laid out a very ambitious agenda…If you’re a shrinking violent kind of legislator, you’ve got no business (geting involved because) this is going to be a difficult lift,” Nussle says. “This is tough medicine but this is a tough time and it requires that kind of leadership.” Congressman Leonard Boswell, a democrat from Des Moines, says he’s reluctant to privatize the Social Security system as Bush suggests. “I think there are some things we can do to strengthen Social Security, but I don’t think it’s in this crisis stage,” Boswell says. Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, will have a key role in crafting Social Security reform. But Grassley told reporters afterwards the most startling moment of the speech came not on Social Security, but on Iran. “The newest thing I heard was encouragement for revolution in Iran,” Grassley said. “Revolution is how you’re putting that?” a reporter asked. “What would it be if the people decide to change their government?” Grassley replied. “Whatever they decide to do, we’re going to be giving them the moral support they need, presumably.”