    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
    [September 24, 2002]
    [Pages 1652-1656]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Senatorial Candidate John R. Thune
    September 24, 2002

        Thank you all for coming. ``Senator,'' thanks for that kind
    introduction. There should be no doubt where my allegiance is in South
    Dakota, and that's with John Thune, the next Senator from the State of
    South Dakota.
        There's a lot of reasons why I think John ought to be in the Senate,
    starting with the fact that he really married well. [Laughter] Probably
    some of you haven't had a chance to meet Kimberley, but you'll know it's true when I say he married
    above himself. [Laughter] They've got a fabulous family. Every time I've
    been to South Dakota, they've been there to greet me. And there's no
    doubt in my mind where his priorities lay, and that is with his family
    and his faith and his State and his country. He's a man of deep value, a
    good, honorable guy. He's a man who will bring credit to the United
    States Senate, and I'm proud to endorse him and to work as hard as I
    possibly can to see that he becomes the next Senator from South Dakota.
        Kimberley was wise enough to skip my
    speech, and so was Laura. [Laughter] She sends
    her affection to the Thunes and joins me in thanking you all for being
    here to support this good fellow.
        Laura is doing great, by the way. She was a,
    you know, public school librarian when I married her, and she didn't
    like politics and really didn't like politicians, if the truth be known.
    [Laughter] She liked a few of them, but she could never envision herself
    being involved in the political process. And thank goodness she said yes
    when I asked her to marry me. A lot of people are wondering why she did
    that. But she's doing a fabulous job as our First Lady. She sends her
    best.
        I want to thank some Senators here who are anxiously awaiting the
    arrival of John Thune. I know Trent Lott is here,
    soon to be majority leader of the Senate. I know Bill Frist is here, from Tennessee, in the back. Thank you for
    coming, Bill. I see my friend Larry Craig is
    here. I appreciate you coming, Larry.
        I know a lot of Members of Congress who are here because they know
    John and like him a lot. I want to thank all the supporters and
    organizers who have helped in the past and are helping this time again.
    I appreciate you all coming. It's good to be with friends and people who
    care deeply about the future of our country--something we all have got
    to be concerned about, the future of our country.
        One of the things I like about John is that he's a fellow who can
    get things done on behalf of the citizens of South Dakota and the
    citizens of our country. As you know, a lot of folks are suffering out
    there as a result of a drought. And in Washington there's always a lot
    of talk about trying to get something done, and a lot of times something
    doesn't get done in this town.
        But thanks to his leadership, his willingness to represent the
    farmers and ranchers of South Dakota, he worked with Ann
    Veneman and my administration to get immediate
    relief to people who hurt. So while Washington was talking, John Thune
    was

    [[Page 1653]]

    doing on behalf of the people of South Dakota.
        Not only is the drought the challenge, but so is our economy. We've
    got people who want to work and can't find work, and we've got to do
    something about it. And I want somebody in the Senate who understands
    the role of Government, and that's not to create wealth but an
    environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish and in which small
    businesses can grow to be big businesses, an environment in which we
    understand the role of Government is to lay the foundation for growth.
    And that's what we have been doing here in Washington, much to the
    objections of some.
        I want you to remember back during the tax cut debate. I said--and
    John agreed--that we needed to let people keep more of their own money.
    When the economy began to slow, it was important to let people have more
    of their own money so they could spend, and when they would spend,
    somebody would produce a good or a service. And when somebody produced
    the good or service to meet their demand, somebody is more likely to
    find work.
        We got the tax cut passed. But because of the rules of the Senate--
    and this one's a hard one to explain. It's a hard one to explain in
    South Dakota, and it's a hard one to explain in Crawford, Texas. But
    because of the rules of the Senate, that tax relief plan we passed goes
    away in 10 years--9 years from now. And that creates uncertainty in the
    economy. It's hard to plan when the Tax Code shifts around. It's hard
    to--it's hard to envision a future that's stable. And people need a
    stable environment in order to create jobs. For the sake of economic
    vitality, for the sake of job creation, I need people in the Senate who
    will make the tax cuts permanent, a permanent part of our Tax Code.
        And that includes permanently repealing the death tax. That should
    be an issue in South Dakota. There's a lot of farmers and ranchers who
    are going to get run off their farms and ranches if we don't repeal the
    death tax forever. We don't need people playing games with the death tax
    to mask their desire to keep the death tax in place. When this man says
    he's going to support us to get rid of the death tax, he means it. It's
    an important voice to have in the Senate.
        As well, we've got a problem with fiscal sanity in Washington. Every
    idea is a good idea up here. The problem is, every idea costs billions
    of dollars. The Senate hasn't passed a budget. And when you don't have a
    budget, it is--it's liable to encourage excessive spending. And if
    there's excessive spending, it's going to serve as a drag on job
    creation.
        If you're interested in job vitality, it's important for Washington,
    DC, to be fiscally sound with the people's money, to spend money on
    priorities and only spend money on priorities. And John Thune
    understands that. We need more fiscal sanity in the United States
    Senate, and he will bring that. We proposed--my budget I proposed shows
    us a way to get back to balance after a difficult period of time, after
    an attack and an emergency and a recession. And some in the Senate
    hadn't heard that message. But John Thune will hear it. He understands
    what I understand: The money we spend up here is not the Government's
    money. The money we spend up here is the taxpayers' money, and we need
    to watch it carefully.
        We need an energy bill, for the sake of job creation as well as for
    national security purposes. We need a terrorism insurance bill to get
    our hardhats working again and, by the way, a bill which will reward
    hard work but not reward trial lawyers.
        We need commonsense thinking when it comes to our national forests.
    John understands this. Larry understands this. We've allowed our forests
    to build up like giant piles of kindling, as a result of backward
    environmental policy. We need commonsense practices. We need commonsense
    thinking in the United States Senate. And that's the kind of thinking
    John will bring.

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        And we also need to have people up there who understand the true
    challenge we face in America, and the challenge we face is the security
    of our homeland. My most important job, I believe the most important job
    of our Congress, is to work together to make the homeland secure, is to
    do everything we possibly can to prevent an enemy which hates America
    from attacking us again.
        Oh, I know some would wish the enemy would go away, but they're not.
    You see, they hate freedom, and we love freedom. They can't stand what
    we stand for. But we're going to stand for what we stand for forever.
    See, we love the fact that people can worship freely in America. We love
    the fact that people can come to our country and realize their dreams.
    We love the fact that people can debate freely. We love a free press.
        We love everything there is about freedom, and we also value each
    life in our country and around the world. Everybody matters. Everybody
    has worth. Everybody counts. But that's not the way the enemy thinks.
    They don't believe in every life matters. They're willing to take
    innocent life in the name of a hijacked religion.
        And so we've got a big task ahead of us today and tomorrow and down
    the road, and that is to defend our freedoms. And that's why I asked the
    Congress to respond to this notion of setting up a Department of
    Homeland Security. We've got to be able to better coordinate between our
    agencies the defense of our homeland. If the number one priority is
    homeland defense, it ought to be the number one priority of every agency
    involved with homeland defense. And the best way to ensure that happens
    is to put them under one umbrella and then give the President, this
    President and future Presidents, the ability and the flexibility to move
    people at the right place at the right time in order to defeat an enemy
    and to defend America.
        And yet right now in the Senate, the Senate feels like they want to
    micromanage the process--not all Senators but some Senators. They want
    to have a pile of books this thick that will hamstring future
    administrations as to how best to protect our homeland, and I'm not
    going to stand for it.
        I appreciate John's vote on a good homeland security bill. And the
    Senate must hear this, because the American people understand it. They
    should not respond to special interests. They ought to respond to this
    interest: Protecting the American people from a future attack.
        Finally, you all know this--John understands this, and I hope you do
    as well--the best way to defend our homeland is to hunt the killers
    down, one person at a time, and to bring them to justice. And that's
    what we're going to do. That's what this country is going to do. And
    that's why I asked the Congress to pass the largest increase in defense
    spending since Ronald Reagan was the President.
        I did so for two valid reasons. One, our people deserve the best
    pay. If you put the uniform on and you go into harm's way, you've got to
    have the best pay, the best training, and the best possible equipment.
    And secondly, I asked for that bill because I wanted to send a clear
    signal to everybody that we're in this deal for the long pull, that
    there's not a moment in time where we say, ``Well, gosh, we quit,'' that
    this country will do whatever it takes to defend our freedoms.
        And one of the things I just call upon the Congress to do before
    they go home is to get the defense bill to my desk. It passed the House.
    It passed the Senate. It's now clogged up in a conference committee. For
    the sake of sending the right signal, for the sake of doing what's right
    for our military, for the sake for doing what's right for planning, for
    prosecuting this war, I need a defense bill before they go home.
        Our job is to keep the peace. Our job is to leave a legacy of
    freedom for our children and our children's children. My

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    job is to remain firm and to uphold the doctrine, ``Either you're with
    us, or you're with the enemy.'' That still stands. The doctrine says,
    ``If you harbor a terrorist and feed a terrorist, you're just as guilty
    as a terrorist.'' That still stands.
        It also stands that we must not allow leaders who develop the
    world's worst weapons to blackmail the United States or our friends and
    allies, to hold us hostage. I went to the United Nations because I want
    the United Nations to have heard not only the case about Saddam Hussein--the fact that he has weapons of mass
    destruction, the fact that he gassed his own people, the fact that he
    terrorized his neighborhood, the fact that he has terrorized his own
    people much worse than Mr. Milosevic did.
    I also made it clear to the United Nations, we want, for the sake of
    peace, for the United Nations to be an effective body. We don't want it
    to be a League of Nations. We want it to be a body that can--that has
    got the backbone necessary to keep the peace. I'm willing to work with
    nations in the United Nations to not only strengthen that institution
    but to hold Saddam Hussein to account.
        But if the United Nations won't act, if they won't disarm Saddam
    Hussein, if they won't expose this liar for
    what he is, then the United States and other friends of ours around the
    world will do just that. We owe it to our children, and we owe it to our
    children's children.
        And I want to thank Members of both parties in the United States
    Congress for working to develop a strong resolution and strong signal to
    the world that this Nation is determined. We love peace. Military is not
    our first choice. But nevertheless, we will not let the challenges that
    we face go unheeded. We understand the reality. We understand the nature
    of the man with which we deal. Everybody matters. Every life counts,
    including those who have been tortured and killed and suppressed in
    Iraq.
        See, we believe in freedom. We believe in freeing people while we
    free ourselves from threats. I understand the--I understand that the
    world is--some in the world are--don't see it that way. But if we have
    to and when we succeed, the world will thank the United States and our
    friends and allies for making our world more secure and more peaceful.
        I appreciate the fact that people say to me, you know, ``How are
    things going?'' And my answer very quickly is, ``Great, because we're
    the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. We are showing the world
    the true nature of our country, that we're tough when we have to be
    tough, and we're compassionate at the same time.''
        I met with a group of Afghan women who are involved in their
    Government. I reminded them what I like to remind people all across our
    country, particularly the youngsters, that we went into their country to
    uphold doctrine. But we also went in to liberate people. Ours is a
    nation which does not conquer. We have no territorial designs or
    desires. But we love freedom.
        It made me feel so great to see 14 women, who had lived under the
    clutches of one of the most barbaric regimes in the history of mankind,
    sitting in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, talking about how to
    enhance education, asking us never to leave until they're secure--which
    I promised them we wouldn't--talking about peace, talking about a
    hopeful future, thanks to the resolve of the United States of America
    and her people.
        I also want you to know that not only will that kind of good come
    out of the evil done to us, but I passionately believe not only can we
    achieve peace in places in the world which have quit on peace, but we
    can address some of our own problems at home in a way we have never
    addressed them before.
        There are pockets of despair and hopelessness in this country; there
    just are. There are people who hurt. There are people who are addicted.
    There are people who say, when somebody says ``the American Dream,''
    they don't know what they're

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    talking about. See, they've given up on the American experience. But
    that can be overcome as our fellow citizens love a neighbor just like
    they'd like to be loved themselves.
        You see, the enemy hit us. But they didn't know who they were
    hitting. I like to say that they probably thought that after 9/11/2001,
    we would file a lawsuit or two. [Laughter] What they found is, they
    found they touched a nerve in this country, a nerve that says we'll
    defend our values at any cost.
        But also they touched a nerve where Americans have taken a step back
    and realize that being a patriot is more than putting your hand over
    your heart and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Being a patriot is
    helping a fellow American who hurts, mentoring a child, starting a Boy
    Scout or Girl Scout troop, being involved with a church or synagogue and
    mosque program necessary to feed the hungry or to find shelter for those
    who have no place to live. That's the America that is now showing its
    face to the world. Out of the evil done to America will come incredible
    good, because our people are so good, and we are so great as a nation.
        I want to thank you for helping John. He'll be a great United States
    Senator. Thank you for coming, and may God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 6:18 p.m. in the Ballroom at the Willard
    Inter-Continental Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Kimberley Thune,
    wife of Representative Thune; President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; and
    former President Slobodan Milosevic of the Federal Republic of
    Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). Representative Thune was a candidate
    for the U.S. Senate in South Dakota.