[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
[October 31, 2002]
[Pages 1933-1939]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1933]]


Remarks in Aberdeen, South Dakota
October 31, 2002

    The President. Thank you all. Thanks a lot for coming. Thanks for 
having me here. The next time you get me to come back, let's go pheasant 
hunting. I can't go today. [Laughter] I've got to work. I'm traveling 
our country to remind people that the American spirit is alive and well 
today.
    That spirit is the spirit of a determined nation willing to defend 
our freedoms, no matter what the cost. That American spirit says loud 
and clear that we're willing to serve something greater than ourselves. 
We're willing to serve people in need, a community we love. And part of 
the American spirit is for our citizens to exercise their duty, and 
their duty is to cast a vote on November the 5th. You have a duty. You 
have a duty in this country. If you believe in freedom, if you believe 
in the values that make this country the finest nation on the face of 
the Earth, you have a duty to go to the polls. That's part of what it 
means to live in a free society.
    I want to thank you all who have voted. I want to thank you who are 
fixing to vote. And I've got some suggestions for you when you get 
inside the voting booth. [Laughter] For the sake of South Dakota, for 
the sake of our country, John Thune should be 
the next United States Senator.
    Audience members. Thune! Thune! Thune!
    The President. For the sake of South Dakota and for the sake of the 
country, Bill Janklow needs to be the next 
United States Congressman. And for the sake of South Dakota, 
particularly the sake for excellence in education, Mike Rounds needs to be the next Governor.
    I urge all the citizens of this State and around the country, 
Republican, Democrat, or independent alike, to go to the polls. But I 
believe when those discerning Democrats and those wise independents take 
a look at the candidates that I'm here to support, they're going to vote 
for them. It's in the best interests of their families. It's in the best 
interests of this State that these three men 
be elected to their offices.
    Not only have these three good men decided to put their 
hat in the ring, all of them married above themselves. [Laughter] 
Kimberley Thune is a great wife of John 
Thune. She is a wonderful lady. She'll bring a lot of class--she has 
brought a lot of class to Washington. We're proud to call her friend. 
John is proud to call her wife, and her kids are proud to call her 
mother.
    I'm proud to be up here with Mary Dean Janklow, who's been a great first lady for the State of South 
Dakota. And Jean Rounds will be a great first 
lady for the State of South Dakota.
    I know something about First Ladies. One of them got stuck with me. 
[Laughter] Laura sends her love; she sends her 
very best. She's coming to the State to campaign, which means you drew 
the short straw. [Laughter] Laura and I share the values of the people 
of South Dakota. After all, as John mentioned, we were raised in west 
Texas. It's good. [Laughter] Then you know what I'm talking about. 
Actually, when I married Laura, she was a public school librarian. She 
didn't like politics. She didn't care for politicians. [Laughter] Thank 
goodness she said yes when I was there on bended knee. America now knows 
why I asked her to marry me. She's smart. She's capable. She's calm. She 
is a great First Lady for this country.
    I want to thank Dr. Hilpert for opening 
up this beautiful facility for this rally. I want to thank the 
university staff for putting up with the President's entourage. I want 
to thank you for your hospitality. I want to thank the mayor of 
Aberdeen, Tom Hooper, for coming out to say hello today. I appreciate--
Tom Hopper. I appreciate

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very much his hospitality. I want to thank all my citizens for coming.
    I want to thank the grassroots activists who are here. I want to 
thank you for your activity in the democratic process. I want to thank 
you for turning out the vote. I want to thank you for what you have done 
in the past. I want to thank you for what you are going to do during the 
next couple of days, which is to man the phones, which is to go to your 
coffee shops and remind the people there that when you find good, 
honorable, decent, honest people, they ought to vote for them. When you 
go to your community centers, urge your neighbors to turn out to vote. 
Make sure that you do your duty not only to vote but, if you believe in 
the character and the vision of these candidates, turn out your 
neighbors to the polls come next Tuesday. Work hard. And you know what's 
going to happen on election day: These three good people are going to get elected.
    And there is a reason why. Mike Rounds has 
got a vision for education for this State that says no child will be 
left behind, a vision which says every child can be educated. There's a 
reason why to vote for him, besides the fact that he's a good and 
honorable man. It's because he's got a vision that's positive for the 
future of this State.
    There's a reason to support Janklow, 
besides the fact he and I are good buddies. There's a reason to support 
him, besides the fact it will be a vote that I can count on to make sure 
that we go the right direction in this country, and that is, he's got a 
solid record of accomplishment in the State of South Dakota.
    And there's a reason why John Thune ought 
to be in the Senate. He's an independent fellow who works on behalf of 
the citizens of South Dakota with all his heart. He can work with both 
Democrats and Republicans. He doesn't get caught up in all the nasty 
rhetoric that tends to divide our Nation's Capital, that rhetoric which 
sends bad signals to many of our citizenry. He's a fellow who works hard 
on behalf of the schoolchildren of South Dakota. After all, with his 
help we were able to send $185 million in educational funding this year. 
John Thune was working hard to make sure that the schools of South 
Dakota were treated well.
    He's a man who is committed to our 
military, not just at election time, by the way. After all, his dad, 
Harold, was a World War II fighter pilot who 
taught John that peace comes through strength, that the stronger this 
Nation of ours is, the more peaceful the world will become. John also, 
like me, listens to his mother. [Laughter] She 
told him, she said, ``You get up there, you better make sure Social 
Security is secure.'' And he has made that commitment.
    I look forward to working with John on key 
issues in the United States Senate, like Medicare. That's a key issue. 
This Nation has made a promise to our seniors, and we need to do 
something about the Medicare system. After all, medicine is modern; 
Medicare isn't. Medicine has changed, but Medicare is stuck in the past. 
I need a Senator with whom I can work to modernize Medicare, and a 
modern Medicare system means prescription drugs for our seniors.
    I need somebody I can work with in the Senate to make sure that the 
crisis of our--in our judiciary gets solved. There's too many vacancies 
in our--on our Federal benches, which means the dockets are crowded. It 
means Americans aren't getting the justice they deserve. The Senate has 
done a lousy job with my nominees. I need a Senator with whom I can work 
to make sure that we stop playing petty partisan politics with the 
judicial nominations I've sent up, to make sure people's records aren't 
distorted, and to make sure we have a bench that is full of judges who 
aren't there to write the law but are there to strictly interpret the 
United States Constitution. And make no mistake about it: That Senator 
is John Thune.

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    Audience members. Thune! Thune! Thune!
    The President. I appreciate the fact that John understands the importance of agriculture in our economy 
and in our way of life. He tried to convince me of that one time. I 
said, ``You don't have to convince me. I'm from the second largest 
agricultural State in the country.'' He said, ``Yeah, but you're not 
from South Dakota.'' I said, ``No, good point.'' [Laughter] He 
understands farmers and ranchers. We both know the values that are found 
on our farms and our ranches, those family values that are dear to the 
heart of America.
    He knows, if you're good at something, we 
ought to promote it. We're good at raising crops, and we ought to be 
selling them all around the world, for the sake of South Dakota farmers 
and South Dakota ranchers.
    He's a commonsense fellow. He understands 
good, practical policies can make a large difference. We need to change 
our forest policies. We need to change our forest policies for the sake 
of the people who live in this State. We need to change our forest 
policies so we can preserve our national treasure. It doesn't make any 
sense to have a forest policy that will not allow for thinning and 
clearing, a forest policy that is so backward that we allow kindling to 
build up in these forests, and then with an act of nature or with a 
sleight of hand by mankind, our national treasures burn to the ground. 
John Thune has got a commonsense vision for good forest policy. I look 
forward to working with him in the United States Senate to preserve 
these national heritages.
    I look forward to working with John to 
deal with some of the high hurdles we have to cross as a nation. One of 
the high hurdles is our economy. Anytime people are looking for work and 
they can't find work means we've got a problem in America. We've got 
some good news today. The third quarter growth was positive, and that's 
good. We're kind of moving our way toward a time when people can find 
work. But there's more to do. There's more to do, and Congress has a 
role to play. They need to get an antiterrorism insurance bill to my 
desk that will put hardhats back to work, that rewards hardhats and not 
America's trial lawyers.
    But one of the best things we can do is to make sure these tax 
relief plans that we--package we passed is permanent. The Senate rules 
say that they last for only 10 years. That creates uncertainty. How can 
a small-business owner plan for the future if the Tax Code is going to 
shift around on him or her? You can't. If you want to create jobs, there 
must be steadiness in our Tax Code. There has to be a permanency to the 
rules.
    And we passed a tax relief plan that over the next 10 years will 
yield $3.2 billion in tax relief to the South Dakota citizens. That 
means you have more money in your pocket. And when you have more money 
in your pocket, it means you're likely to demand a good or a service. 
And when you demand a good or a service, in the marketplace it means 
somebody is likely to produce that good or a service, which means 
somebody is more likely to find work. For the sake of jobs, for the sake 
of job creation, we need to make the tax relief permanent.
    Be wary of those folks who say we need to revisit the tax relief 
plan. That's Washington, DC, code for, ``I'm fixing to raise your 
taxes.'' When the economy is bumping along, we don't need to be raising 
taxes; we need to be reducing taxes. And we've got to also remember you 
need to have somebody in Washington that understands whose money we're 
talking about. That money is not the Government's money. We're talking 
about your money.
    So I look forward to working with Senator Thune and Congressman Janklow on the 
issues that relate to the--our citizenry, issues like economic growth 
and good health systems and education. The biggest issue we'll be 
working on together is to protect the American people. That's the

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biggest issue. The biggest challenge we have in America is to protect 
our citizens from killers. They're nothing but a bunch of coldblooded 
killers. These people have hijacked a great religion, and they kill 
innocent life. See, they don't like America; they don't value life like 
we do. We say in our country, ``Everybody matters. Everybody is precious 
in the sight of an Almighty. Everybody counts.'' That's not the ways 
these folks we're chasing down think. You just got to know that.
    But the Nation is--we've been warned. We understand the stakes. We 
understand our life is changed. And so there's a lot of good folks doing 
everything they can to do our number one job, which is to protect you, a 
lot of good folks at the Federal level and the State level and the local 
level doing everything we can to disrupt and deny, to run down every 
hint, every lead. Anytime we've got any kind of inkling that somebody is 
thinking about doing something to an American and something to our 
homeland, you've just got to know we're moving on it, to protect the 
United States Constitution, and at the same time, we're protecting you.
    But we can do a better job. And that's why I went to the United 
States Congress and asked them to join me in the creation of a 
Department of Homeland Security, so we can get all of the agencies 
involved with protecting you to have as their number one focus your 
protection and, if need be, be able to change cultures within these 
agencies.
    The House of Representatives passed a good bill. I want to thank 
John Thune for his vote. This bill is stuck in 
the Senate. It's stuck in the Senate because some Senators are trying to 
extract a price from the President, and the price is, is that I will 
give up the capacity to suspend certain bargaining rules in the name of 
national security, the ability that every President since John F. 
Kennedy has had.
    Let me put it to you this way: The work rules--I wouldn't have the 
capacity to suspend some work rules for the Department of Homeland 
Security if I accepted their version, but I would for the Department of 
Agriculture. Here we are at war; I have more flexibility in dealing with 
the work rules in the Department of Agriculture than I would in the 
Department charged with your protection. It doesn't make any sense. I 
need to be able to put the right people at the right place at the right 
time to protect the American people. John Thune will support me in advancing a homeland security bill that 
makes sense.
    But the best way to protect you is to find these killers, one at a 
time, and bring them to justice. And that's exactly what we're going to 
do. It doesn't matter how long it takes. It just doesn't matter how long 
it takes to defend our country and defend our freedoms. There's not a 
calendar on my desk that says, on such-and-such a date you'll be hauling 
them home, on such-and-such a date we quit. That's not an America I 
know, and that's not the America you're a part of. You see, when it 
comes to defending that which we hold dear, our freedoms, it doesn't 
matter what the cost; it doesn't matter how long it takes.
    See, history has called us--it's called this generation into action. 
And we are not going to let future generations of Americans down. We 
have an obligation to future generations to do whatever it takes to 
defend that which we hold dear, and we hold our freedoms dear.
    I signed the biggest increase in defense spending since Ronald 
Reagan was the President. I want to thank the Members of Congress and 
the Senate for getting that bill to me. The reason I asked for such a 
big increase is, there's two principles involved. One, anytime we put 
our troops into harm's way, anytime we put our youngsters into a zone in 
which there's danger, we owe it to them and we owe it to their loved 
ones to make sure they've got the best pay, the best training, and the 
best possible equipment.

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    And secondly, we're sending a clear signal to friend and foe alike 
that this is a determined nation. I'm determined to make sure that that 
doctrine that says, ``Either you're with us or with the enemy,'' is 
still clear in everybody's mind around the world. It still stands, by 
the way. If you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the 
terrorist; that doctrine still stands, too. And that defense bill shows 
we mean what we say.
    For those of you who have got loved ones in the military, you need 
to pass on this message: The Commander in Chief has got all the 
confidence in the world, all the confidence that our military can 
achieve any objective. I'm proud of them, and I appreciate their 
sacrifices for our great Nation.
    And we're making progress. We're making progress. Sometimes you'll 
see it on your TV screens, and sometimes you won't. See, it's a 
different kind of war. In the old days, we'd destroy tanks and ships and 
airplanes and say, ``Look, we're destroying the enemy's hardware, and 
we're making progress.'' This bunch we're fighting is people who hide in 
caves and send their youngsters to their suicidal deaths. It's a 
different kind of war. But we're still making progress, one at a time. 
We're hauling them in. We've got a coalition of people on the hunt.
    A couple of thousand of them have been hauled in, and they're no 
longer a problem. Like number met a different fate, and I can assure you 
they're not a problem. One of them popped his head up the other day, the 
guy who was going to be the 20th hijacker. He's not a problem to the United States either. We're 
slowly but surely rounding these killers up to make America a safe 
place.
    We've got to be clear-eyed. We've got to understand the risk that 
our country faces. We've got to be realistic, particularly in 
Washington, DC, when it comes to setting priorities to defending our 
homeland. It's important that we not see the world the way we hope it is 
but we see the world the way it really is. The world changed on 
September the 11th, 2001. It used to be, when a lot of us were growing 
up, that oceans could protect us. Oh, if there was a conflict overseas, 
we could pick or choose if we wanted to be involved, but the threat 
wasn't really real to America. It might be real to some Americans who 
were overseas, but it wasn't real to our homeland. It was not a threat, 
but that all changed. And it's important for those of us who are 
responsible for your safety to be clear-eyed about the threats, to see 
threats as they are, not as we hope they are.
    There is a threat in Iraq. And the threat exists because a leader 
there not only has denied and deceived the 
world about whether or not he's got weapons of mass destruction, but 
this is a guy who's used weapons of mass destruction. He not only has 
them; he's used them. And he's not only used them in his neighborhood; 
he's used them against his own people. This is a man who cannot stand 
what we stand for. He hates the fact, like Al Qaida does, that we love 
freedom. See, they can't stand that. This is a guy who has had 
connections with these shadowy terrorist networks. As I said in 
Cincinnati, Ohio, a while back, he's the kind of fellow who would love 
nothing more than to hurt America and not leave any fingerprints by 
using a surrogate army on his behalf. He's a problem. He's a true threat 
to America and our friends and allies.
    I went to the United Nations a while ago because I want the United 
Nations to be effective. It's a different kind of war we face; we face 
different kind of threats. It makes sense for there to be an 
international body that has got the backbone and the capacity to help 
keep the peace. And so here is my message, a message, by the way, 
resoundingly supported by members of both political parties in the 
Senate and the House: The message to the world is that we want the U.N. 
to succeed.

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We want those resolutions you pass to be listened to. You have told 
Saddam Hussein he must disarm. Do your job.
    And Saddam Hussein, you have said you'll 
disarm; you need to do your job. But if the U.N. won't act, and if 
Saddam Hussein won't disarm, for the sake of peace, for the sake of a 
free future for our children, we will lead a coalition of nations and 
disarm Saddam Hussein.
    There's no doubt, there is no doubt that we have got a chance in 
this Nation to bring some great good to our country and to the world, 
out of the evil done to us. You know, I kind of wonder what was going 
through the enemy's mind when they attacked us. They probably thought we 
were so selfish and that our true religion was materialism, so self-
centered that after 9/11/2001, oh, we might file a lawsuit or two. I 
guess they've been watching too much TV. [Laughter] They don't 
understand the country.
    This country is tough, and it's strong, and it's determined. And by 
being tough and strong and determined, we can bring peace to the world. 
You got to know, amidst all the talk--please tell your kids that amongst 
all the talk that you're hearing, the vision is peace. And I believe 
it's going to happen. I believe it's not only peace for Americans, but 
because we value every life--everybody is important; each person 
matters--there can be peace in parts of the world that have given up on 
peace. I believe it's possible to have peace in the Middle East. I 
believe it's possible to have peace in South Asia. The enemy has given 
us a chance, after our grief, not only to be alert here at home but to 
work hard to keep the peace elsewhere. And we will.
    And here at home, we can be a better America, too. And that's 
important for you all to realize, that out of the evil done to America 
can come some incredible good. There are pockets of despair and 
hopelessness in America. There are people who hurt. There are people who 
wonder whether or not the American experience is meant for them, people 
whose lives are hopeless, people whose lives are addicted, people whose 
lives have no love. And while Government can help and pass laws, what 
Government cannot do is put hope in people's hearts or a sense of 
purpose in people's lives. That's done when a fellow citizen takes it 
upon herself or himself to put their arm around a neighbor in need, a 
child, and say, ``I love you. What can I do to help you?''
    And that's happening in this country, and that's happening in 
neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood. No, the American 
spirit is alive and well. Part of that spirit is serving something 
greater than yourself in life.
    Today when I came to the airport, I met Clay Crawford, father of four. He took it upon himself for the past 
couple of years to mentor at-risk youths. I'm confident that amongst you 
there are hundreds of people who are doing the very same thing, being a 
part of that movement to make sure that the American experience is alive 
and well in every corner of our country. It doesn't matter whether 
you're going to see a shut-in or running a Boy Scout troop or a Girl 
Scout troop. It doesn't matter whether you're a youngster wanting to be 
involved with the USA Freedom Corps. My call to you is, in order to 
fight evil, is to do some good. You see, it's the gathering momentum of 
millions of acts of kindness and decency which define the true character 
of the greatest country on the face of the Earth.
    Thank you for representing the American spirit. Thank you for 
coming. May God bless you all, and may God bless America.
                      

Note: The President spoke at 9:40 a.m. in the Barnett Center at Northern 
State University. In his remarks, he referred to John M. Hilpert, 
president, Northern State University; Harold and Pat Thune, parents of 
Representative John R. Thune; Ramzi bin al-

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Shibh, an Al Qaida operative suspected of helping to plan the September 
11, 2001, terrorist attacks, who was captured in Karachi, Pakistan; and 
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.