    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
    [December 3, 2002]
    [Pages 2156-2161]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 2156]]

    Remarks at a Luncheon for Senatorial Candidate Suzanne Haik
    Terrell in New Orleans, Louisiana
    December 3, 2002

        Nice to be back in New Orleans, home of a new basketball team, home
    of a winning football team, and in the State of the next United States
    Senator, Suzie Terrell.
        I'm thrilled to be here amongst a lot of our friends. It seems I've
    been coming to New Orleans for a long time. [Laughter] What a fabulous
    town. I'm honored to be here on behalf of a great candidate, somebody
    who represents the values of Louisiana, somebody who has got a record of
    accomplishment, somebody who is not afraid to speak her mind to the
    President of the United States--[laughter]--but somebody who I know will
    do a great job on behalf of all of Louisiana.
        I'm here to thank you for your support. I'm here to remind the good
    folks of Louisiana they have a duty to go to the polls on Saturday. In
    the land of the free, you have an obligation to defend freedom by being
    a part of our democracy. I don't care whether you're Republican or
    Democrat or don't give a hoot about a political party; you have an
    obligation in this country to vote. But I've got a suggestion.
    [Laughter] For the good of Louisiana and for the good of America, Suzie
    Terrell needs to be the next United States Senator.
        She's got a lot going for her. First of all, she's a mother of three
    fabulous young girls. There they are: Julie,
    Bebe, and Chrissy.
    Anybody who can raise three teenage girls--[laughter]--you know what I
    mean. [Laughter]
        I appreciate her willingness to serve the people, willingness to
    take the path that a lot of people won't take, and that is offer herself
    up for office. And she's done a great job in the office that she held.
    After all, you might remember that the election commissioner's office
    needed a little house-cleaning, needed to have the integrity restored,
    and Suzie Terrell did it. She saves the taxpayers money.
        I need an ally up there who understands, when it comes to spending
    what they call the Government's money, the Government doesn't own that
    money. It's not the Government's money that we spend. It's the people's
    money.
        And she's going to have some good hands to work with in the United
    States Congress from the great State of Louisiana, starting with the
    chairman, Billy Tauzin. I love working
    with Billy. He brings good common sense to the Halls of the United
    States Congress. And I like working with David Vitter from right here in the New Orleans area. David, thank
    you for being here. And Jim McCrery is with us
    today, and I appreciate your hard work, Jim. Thanks for coming. And
    Richard Baker is with us. Where are you,
    Richard? Baton Rouge. Good to see you, Richard.
        I so very much appreciate being here with your Governor. He too gives the President an earful.
    [Laughter] He's not the prettiest Governor in America. [Laughter] But
    he's one of the most effective. He's done a heck of a job for the people
    of Louisiana.
        And I know we've got another Governor here with us--celebrating the
    Louisiana Purchase, which I'm sure the people of Louisiana agree with
    me, is a heck of a deal. [Laughter] But Frank Keating from Oklahoma is here today as well. Frank, I
    appreciate you coming. Yes, sir. He probably wants to talk about the OU-
    Texas game. [Laughter]
        I'm honored to be up here with Pat Brister
    and Boysie Bollinger, both of whom are good
    friends, and both of whom represent the grassroots activists in the
    State of Louisiana. I'm here to remind you all that--I want to thank you
    for what you

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    have done and what you are going to do over the next couple of days, and
    that is to gather up your buddies and get them to vote, is to man the
    phones and put up the signs and grab people by the wrists and say, ``You
    owe it to Louisiana to vote for Suzie Terrell for the United States
    Senate.''
        I like Suzie's attitude and her tone, the way she wants to go to
    Washington to get some things done. And we need more of that in
    Washington, DC. Sometimes, Washington is one of these towns where the
    person--people who think they've got the sharp elbow is the most
    effective person, kind of zero-sum politics in Washington: ``I win. You
    lose.'' That's not the right attitude for the American people. We need a
    United States Senator from Louisiana whose mission it is to improve the
    lives, as best we can, of all our citizens.
        And we're making some progress in Washington. Slowly but surely,
    we're changing the tone and getting things done on behalf of the
    American people. This week, last couple of weeks, I signed some
    important legislation. I signed the Department of Homeland Security,
    which will better enable our Federal Government to plan and to protect
    the American people from further attack. And I want to thank the Members
    of the Senate and the House who finally came together to get that
    legislation done.
        And I signed a bill on terrorism insurance. It's a bill that will
    get our hardhats back to working again, a bill that should make it
    easier for big construction projects to get started so that a lot of
    hard-working Americans can find work--by the way, a bill which is more
    favorable to the hardhats than to the trial lawyers in America. It's a
    good piece of legislation that shows what can happen when people come
    together to get the people's business done.
        Yesterday at the Pentagon, I signed the defense authorization bill,
    fulfilling a promise that I made--Dick Cheney
    and I made--that said that we're going to do everything we can to make
    sure we've got the strongest military in the world. A strong military
    makes it more likely the world is going to be peaceful. We not only had
    pay raises for our folks; I can say to those whose families serve in the
    service, ``You're going to have the best training and the best possible
    equipment when you put on the uniform of the U.S. military.''
        We're making good progress, but there's a lot of work to be done.
    And I look forward to working with Senator Terrell. We did some good
    things in education, but there's more to do. So long as any child can't
    read, we've got a problem in America. As a matter of fact, the new civil
    right is to make sure every child can read in America. I look forward to
    working with a Senator Terrell to make sure we maintain the highest of
    high standards, to challenge what I call the soft bigotry of low
    expectations.
        I look forward to working with Senator Terrell to make sure that we
    continually pass power out of Washington, DC, because we believe in
    local control of schools. I look forward to working with Senator Terrell
    to make sure that in return for Federal money, that we know whether or
    not our children can read and write and add and subtract. In order to
    make sure no child gets left behind, we must challenge schools which
    will not teach and will not change. And I'm confident I have an ally in
    Senator Suzie Terrell.
        We need a Senator who can help break logjams in the United States
    Senate, particularly when it comes to getting us a good energy bill. I
    see Billy nodding his head. He's been
    working on an energy bill. He agrees with me, in this world we need an
    energy strategy. I mean, face it; we import a lot of energy from
    overseas. Some of the people we import from don't exactly like us.
    [Laughter] We need an energy plan that encourages conservation and new
    technologies. We need an energy plan that encourages the development of
    safe nuclear

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    power. We need an energy plan that encourages clean-coal technologies.
    We need an energy plan that encourages environmentally safe exploration
    for hydrocarbons in the United States of America.
        I look forward to working with Senator Terrell to modernize
    Medicare. Medicare is an aged system which is not adapting to the times.
    Medicine has changed, but Medicare hasn't. Medicine is modern. There's
    all kinds of new technologies and prescription drugs which can save
    lives. But Medicare is stuck in the past. I want to work with Senator
    Terrell to see to it that we modernize Medicare, making sure we fulfill
    our promises to our seniors. And a modern Medicare system means
    prescription drug coverage for our seniors.
        I look forward to working with Senator Terrell to make sure the
    environment for the entrepreneurial spirit is strong. We understand the
    role of Government is not to create wealth; the role of Government is to
    create an environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish, in which
    small businesses can grow to be big businesses. And one way the Federal
    Government can affect job growth is to let people keep more of their own
    money, is through tax relief.
        Tax relief is not a political slogan; it's good economic policy. If
    a person has more of their own money, they're likely to demand an
    additional good or a service. And in the marketplace, when somebody
    demands a good or a service, somebody is likely to produce the good or a
    service. And when somebody produces the good or a service, somebody in
    Louisiana or elsewhere in America is going to be able to find work. We
    passed tax relief at the right time in American economic history, and
    now I need a Senator to join me in making sure that tax relief is
    permanent. And there is no question where Suzie Terrell stands on tax
    relief.
        And I need somebody to work with me to make sure that we've got a
    good judiciary. It's amazing what an election will do. [Laughter] For a
    long period of time, I couldn't get my judges even to have hearings.
    There's a vacancy gap on our Federal bench--benches--and that's a
    problem. It's a problem for people who need to have a hearing. It's a
    problem for people who want justice. And I couldn't get my judges
    through the Senate because they were playing politics with the people I
    put up, good, honorable, decent people, people whose job it is not to
    try to write legislation from the bench, people whose job it is to
    strictly interpret the United States Constitution. Those are the kind of
    people I put on the bench.
        And Louisiana needs a Senator who will vote for Louisiana values
    when it comes to the judiciary. And there's no question in my mind that
    when it comes to having a good, sound judiciary, the right United States
    Senator is Suzie Terrell from the State of Louisiana.
        No, there's a lot of issues we'll be working on, but there's no
    bigger issue than to win this war against the terrorists. I talked about
    the homeland security bill I signed, and you just need to know there's a
    lot of good folks working overtime to protect the American homeland. But
    the best way to secure the homeland is to chase the killers down, one at
    a time, and bring them to justice. And that's what we're going to do.
        It's a different kind of war. In the old days, you could destroy
    tanks and ships and airplanes, and say you're making progress. This is a
    different kind of enemy. It's an enemy that hides in caves and sends
    youngsters to their suicidal deaths. These people do not value innocent
    life. In America, we say every life is precious; everybody has value;
    everybody counts. Our enemy we face today murders in the name of a great
    religion, and they could care less who dies. They're nothing but
    coldblooded killers, and we're going to treat them that way. It doesn't
    matter how long it takes; it doesn't matter how deep the cave, the
    United States of America and our friends

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    and allies will hunt them down one by one, in the name of freedom.
        I cannot imagine what was going through their mind when they hit
    America. They must have thought we were so soft, so weak, so fragile
    that after 9/11/ 2001, we might file a lawsuit or two. [Laughter] But
    they're learning something about America that I know, that when it comes
    to our freedoms, when it comes to the values we hold dear, this United
    States of America is plenty tough. And that's the way we got to be in
    this new war of the 21st century.
        And we're making progress. You just need to know we're making good
    progress. After all, this great Nation and our friends liberated a
    country from one of the most barbaric regimes in the history of mankind
    by routing the Taliban. We went into Afghanistan not to conquer anybody
    but to liberate people. And now, thanks to our great country and our
    great soldiers and our wonderful friends, young girls--many young girls
    go to school for the first time in a country that has been liberated by
    the American people.
        And we've got more work to do there. And we'll stay there until we
    rout them out. See, they think they can kind of hide in the countryside
    there in Afghanistan, and they may be able to hide for a day or two.
    They may be able to hide for a year. But it doesn't matter how long.
    See, that's what you just have to know. It just doesn't matter how long;
    we're going to stay on the hunt. These people are scattered in 60
    different countries. They're scattered around, and slowly but surely,
    we're dismantling their terrorist network--slowly but surely.
        The guy who led the U.S.S.--the bombing mastermind, the bombing on
    the U.S.S. Cole, he was the Al Qaida
    general for the Gulf states. He's not a problem anymore. [Laughter] One
    by one, we're bringing them to justice. That's what we've been called to
    do. History has put this big spotlight on us, and we're not going to let
    future generations of Americans down.
        And that's why I was so proud to sign this defense appropriation
    authorization bill. The big increases in defense spending sent a clear
    message to the world: We're in this deal for the long pull.
        And we've also got to recognize here in America times have changed.
    See, when a lot of us were growing up, we could feel pretty secure by
    the fact that we had two oceans surrounding us and protecting us from
    dangers that might be gathering abroad. September the 11th, 2001,
    completely changed the strategic calculations of this country. The
    battlefield is here. And therefore, it's incumbent upon the President
    and the Congress to work together to anticipate gathering dangers before
    they become acute, before the situation becomes so dire that drastic
    measures might be needed.
        It's very important for us to recognize threats when we see them and
    deal with them appropriately. After all, the threat gathering in a
    distant land turns out to be a threat directly on the American people.
    We've got to be wise about how we view the world and make sure that the
    new arrangements, the new alliances, aren't allowed to develop, an
    alliance, for example, where a nation that has weapons of mass
    destruction uses a shadowy terrorist network as a forward army, perhaps
    encouraging them to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.
    You've got to worry about disrupting training facilities.
        And that's why I started talking about Iraq and Saddam
    Hussein, not only starting a debate in the
    Halls of the United States Congress, which overwhelmingly supported any
    means necessary to deal with the threat to the United States, but also
    took the debate to the United Nations and a couple of weeks ago to NATO.
        It's important for our fellow Americans to understand that, when
    we're talking about Saddam Hussein, we're
    talking about a man who said he has had no weapons of mass destruction,
    yet we believe has weapons of mass destruction; a man who

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    has not only had weapons of mass destruction, but he's used weapons of
    mass destruction. He used weapons of mass destruction on his neighbors,
    and he used weapons of mass destruction on his own citizens. He's a man
    who has professed hate to America as well as our friends and allies.
    He's a man who has got terrorist ties, a man who helps train terrorists.
    He's a threat, and he's a danger.
        I went to the United Nations because I felt like, in a world that
    required cooperation in this new war of the 21st century, that it was
    important the United Nations show some backbone, that the United Nations
    be something other than an empty debating society, that when they issue
    a resolution, they mean it. And on a 15-0 vote, the United Nations
    recognized the threat of Saddam Hussein and
    demanded that he disarm.
        I then went to our close Allies in NATO and said the same thing. I
    said, ``This man's a threat. He's a threat to
    us. He's a threat to you. He too must disarm.'' And now, as you've seen
    in your newspapers, inspectors are inside of Iraq. Inspectors are there
    not to play hide-and-seek with Mr. Saddam Hussein. Inspectors are there
    to verify the will of the world. And the will of the world says clearly,
    ``Disarm.'' Saddam Hussein, for the sake of peace, must disarm. And if
    he refuses to disarm, if he tries to deceive his way out of disarmament,
    this Nation, along with other willing nations, will disarm Saddam
    Hussein.
        I say that because I believe in peace. I believe this is how you
    achieve peace, by being strong and resolute, by fighting terrorism and
    all forms of terror, by not allowing those who hate to try to dictate to
    those of us who love freedom. See, I believe out of the evil done to
    America is going to come some incredible good. Part of the good done to
    this--part of the evil done to this country is going to help lead the
    world to peace.
        Oh, I know some don't believe that, but I do. I believe that if we
    remain steadfast and strong, if we remain true to our values, we'll
    achieve peace, not only peace for ourselves but because we believe every
    life is precious, everybody matters, everybody has worth. We can achieve
    peace in parts of the world where they've quit on peace, where people
    have given up hope.
        I also believe here at home we can be a more compassionate country.
    See, there's people who are hurting in America. Amongst our plenty,
    there are pockets of despair, of loneliness and hopelessness. There are
    people when you say, ``American Dream,'' they wonder what the heck does
    that mean, American Dream? They have no idea about the promise of this
    country. And my attitude is, so long as some hurt, we all hurt.
        And I also recognize the limitations of Government. Government can
    hand out money, and frankly, we do a pretty good job of it sometimes.
    But what it can't do is put hope in people's hearts or a sense of
    purpose in people's lives. That's done when a neighbor puts their arm
    around somebody who hurts and says, ``I love you. What can I do to
    help?'' See, I strongly believe that America is going to change one
    heart, one soul, one conscience at a time, because the spirit of this
    country, a selfless spirit, is alive and well.
        There are thousands of people all across New Orleans and Louisiana
    and all across America who understand the responsibility of being an
    American. It's more than just making a living. The responsibility of a
    true patriot is somebody who's willing to serve something greater than
    themselves, serve their country. And one way to best serve your country
    is to love your neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself.
        No, there was tremendous evil done to America, but out of the evil
    is a new spirit, a vitality of the American spirit, perhaps best
    represented by the folks on Flight 93. The story, in my judgment, is
    going to be one of the profound stories of the September the 11th, 2001,
    tragedy. It captures what I know is the strength of our country.

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    People were flying across the land, and they heard the airplane they
    were on was going to be a weapon. Imagine what went through their minds.
    They eventually got their thoughts together. They called their loved
    ones and said goodbye and ``I love you.'' History will show that a
    prayer was said. One guy said, ``Let's roll.'' These citizens took the
    plane into the ground to save lives, to serve something greater than
    themselves.
        That spirit of America is so strong and so alive, it allows me to
    boldly predict that out of the evil done to this country is going to
    come incredible good, not only a peaceful world but a more compassionate
    and hopeful and decent America for every citizen who's lucky enough to
    live in this country.
        And I can make that prediction with absolute certainty, because I
    know America. This is the greatest country, full of the most decent
    people on the face of this Earth. I'm honored you're here. May God bless
    you all, and may God bless America.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:10 p.m. in the Imperial Ballroom at the
    Fairmont Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. M.J. ``Mike'' Foster
    of Louisiana; Pat Brister, chairman, Republican Party of Louisiana;
    Donald ``Boysie'' Bollinger, chairman of the board and chief executive
    officer, Bollinger Shipyards, Inc.; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Al Qaida's
    chief of operations for the Persian Gulf; and President Saddam Hussein
    of Iraq.