Good evening from the clerk Athletic Center at the university of massachusetts and boston. Im jim of the news hour of pbs and i welcome you to the first of three 90 minute debates between the democratic candidate for Vice President , president , are gore and the democratic candidate traditionally bush of texas. The debates are sponsored by the commission on president ial debates and they will be conducted within formats and rules agreed to buy the commission and the campaigns. Tonight well have the candidates at podiums. No answer to a question can exceed two minutes, rebuttals are limited to one minute. As moderator i have the option to follow up and to extend any particular given take it another three and a half minutes. But even then those who go answer can exceed to minutes. The candidates under their rules may not question each other directly. There will be no Opening Statements and each candidate may have up to timmins for closing statement. The questions and the subjects were ch
Good evening from the Clark Athletic Center at the university of massachusetts in boston. Im jim lehrer of the news hour on pbs and i welcome you to the debate between the democratic candidate for president , Vice President al gore and the republican candidate, governor george w. Bush of texas. They will be conducted within for th formats agreed to by the two campaigns. No answer to a question can exceed two minutes, rebuttals are limited to one minute. But as moderator, i have the option to follow up and extend any particular give and take 3 1 2 minutes. No single answer can exceed two minutes. The candidates under their may not question each other directly. There will be no Opening Statements but each candidate may have up to two minutes for a closing statement. The questions and the subjects were chosen by me alone. I have told no one from the two campaigns or the commission or anyone else involved what they are. Theres a small audience in the hall tonight. They are not here to part
Normally when you do book tours you go to different cities, you talk about connections the place has with whatever youve written about. This is a special place in this context and im certainly not here to tell you your own story of what happened in this city 17 years ago because im sure you know it much better than i ever will. And one of the things that is always moved me when i come here is first of all how warmly ive been welcomed by everybody but also how profoundly the bombing touched everybody here. It is a relatively small place. Ive never met from Oklahoma City who wasnt touched in a personal way in some way by the tragedy. The first time i came i spoke to a number of the relatives of the victims, especially the children who died in the Day Care Center and i thought im a British Foreign correspondent, ive been to a lot of not terribly pleasant places around the world, this is just another assignment and then having spoken to them, i went down to the memorial and saw that fence
Of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards. I have met with our team which we assembled to deal with this bombing. And i have determined to take the following steps to assure the strongest response to this situation. First, i had deployed a Crisis Management team under the leadership of the fbi working with the department of justice, the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, military and local authorities. We are sending the worlds finalest vefinal e finest investigators to solve the murders. I have declared an emergency in Oklahoma City. At my direction, james lee witt, the director of fema sis on his way there to help the people of Oklahoma City deal with the tragedy. We are taking every precaution to protect people who work in aor live near other places. We will find the people who did this. When we do, justice will be swift, certain and severe. These people are killers and they must be treated like killers. Finally, let me say that i ask all americans tonight to pray. To
President clinton the bombing in Oklahoma City was an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens. It was an act of cowardice and it was evil. The United States will not tolerate it. And i will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards. I have met with our team which we assembled to deal with this bombing, and i have determined to take the following steps to assure the strongest response to this situation. First, i have deployed a Crisis Management team, under the leadership of the fbi, working with the department of justice, the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, military and local authorities. We are sending the worlds finest investigators to solve these murders. Second, i have declared an emergency in Oklahoma City, and at my direction, james lee witt, the director of the federal Emergency Management agency, is now on his way there to make sure we do everything we can to help the people of oklahoma deal with the tragedy. Third, we are taki