Commentary by Paul Wolfowitz

Hearing what a nice civil introduction that was and going by the demonstrators I just passed through on the way getting here, I thought maybe I should just sit down and quit while I'm still ahead.

I'm sure you've all noticed the demonstrators we noticed coming in, and I really do understand what they are concerned about. We may disagree, but I understand their concerns. War is a terrible thing. And President Bush understands that perfectly clearly. He's had to hug widows of brave men killed in Afghanistan, and he knows what it's going to be like to have to hug widows if there is war in Iraq. But he can also imagine what it will be like to hug the widows of a catastrophic terrorist attack on the United States, and that's what he has to weigh; it's an awesome responsibility and it's not one that he takes lightly.

On a lighter note, seeing that crowd I did think for a minute I might be back at a university, maybe someplace like Cambridge. It reminded me of one of George Shultz's favorite jokes. It's about the proper Boston lady who came late in life for her first visit to the West Coast. This is back in the early 20th century when the elite of Boston were characterized by that phrase, "The Cabots speak only to Lodges, and the Lodges speak only to God." I don't know whether this lady was a Cabot or a Lodge, but in any case she had never been here before, and when someone asked her what did she think of San Francisco, she said, "Oh, it's a beautiful city, but it's so far from the ocean."