    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
    [September 21, 2006]
    [Pages 1683-1688]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Gubernatorial Candidate Charles J. Crist,
    Jr., and the Republican Party of Florida in
    Orlando
    September 21, 2006

        The President. Thank you all. Thanks for coming. I appreciate you
    all being here. Thanks for your time. From ``Chalkboard Charlie'' to
    ``Governor Charlie.'' Thanks for helping this good man. He's a good,
    decent man. He's had plenty of experience. He knows what he needs to do.
    He's been the commissioner of education; he's been your attorney
    general; he's been a State senator. He's the right guy for the job, and
    I want to thank you very much for standing strong when you find somebody
    who is decent and honorable, willing to serve the State of Florida, and
    that's Charlie Crist.
        And you're right, Charlie, you're following a good man. He's made our family proud. But more importantly, he's
    done a fine job for the people of Florida. He's the kind of guy--
    [applause]--and, Charlie, I know you'll follow this example about you--
    he doesn't need a poll or a focus group to tell him what to think.
        And that's what is necessary to make the hard decisions when you're
    the chief executive officer of a State, or in my case, the United
    States. I'm proud to be here with Charlie. I know something about being
    a Governor; I was one once. It requires a man with vision and a person
    who knows how to set the right priorities for a State. There's no doubt
    in my mind Charlie Crist will make a great Governor for the State of
    Florida, and I want to thank you for helping him.
        And my wife feels the same way. If you were
    smart, Charlie, you'd get Laura down here to campaign for you. She sends
    her love; she sends her love to Jeb; and she sends
    her love to our friends here in Florida. And we've got a lot of friends.
    We've been blessed in this great State to have made a lot of friends.
    And I want to thank all my buddies who were there when nobody thought we
    could win in 2000, and then came back through in 2004. Now you're back
    in 2006, and I'm grateful. It's for a good cause.
        I want to thank Jeff Kottkamp, the
    next Lieutenant Governor of the State of Florida, who is with us today.
    I, too, encourage you to vote for Katherine Harris for the United States Senate. Welcome, Katherine.
        One of my long-time friends here in Orange County is a guy whose son
    made him famous--[laughter]--a while ago. You might remember the
    incident. I was up there giving one of my best speeches. [Laughter] I
    was putting 100 percent into it. I thought I had the crowd on their
    feet, until I looked behind me. And Crotty's son was sound asleep. [Laughter] So, Crotty, you tell him, stay awake the next time he comes to
    one of these things. It kind of hurts an old guy's feelings. But I'm
    glad to be here with Rich Crotty. He's doing a fine job in Orange
    County.
        I want to thank all the other State and local officials who are
    here. I want to thank the party activists who are here, starting with
    Carole Jean Jordan, who is the chairman of
    the Republican Party of Florida, and my friend Al Austin, who is the finance chairman of the Republican Party of
    Florida.
        And raising money is one thing, and tonight is an extraordinarily
    successful event, and I thank you. I know it takes a lot to organize one
    of these events, and you've done a marvelous job. But I also want to
    remind you, in order for Charlie to win, he's going to need people to
    put up the signs and make the phone calls and stuff the envelopes--those
    quiet heroes of grassroots politics. So for those of you who have been
    involved with grassroots politics here in Florida, thank you for what
    you have done and thank you for what you're going

    [[Page 1684]]

    to do to help this good man get elected Governor of the State of
    Florida.
        You know, it's--one of the big issues that faces our country and
    your State is the issue of taxes. I think you're taxed too much; so does
    Charlie. And I think there's going to be a clear difference in this
    race, and there's certainly a clear difference nationally. You know,
    the--we share a philosophy, and that is, the role of Government is not
    to try to create wealth, but the role of Government is to create an
    environment in which the entrepreneurial spirit flourishes and which
    small businesses can grow to be big businesses. It's an environment in
    which people get to keep their own money. And the fundamental question
    facing this Nation and this State is, who best to spend your money? We
    believe the best people to spend your money is you.
        The Democrats believe they can spend it better than you can.
        Audience members. Noo!
        The President. And it's a fundamental, philosophical difference. I
    aim to make taxes a key issue across this country, and we've got a good
    record on taxes, and so does Brother Jeb, and so
    will Governor Crist.
        I was proud to sign the largest tax relief since Ronald Reagan was
    President of the United States. I did so because I felt we had enough
    money to spend on your behalf in Washington, DC, and I knew that if you
    had more money in your pocket to save, invest, or spend, this economy
    would grow.
        There's a fundamental difference in Washington. When we cut the
    taxes on child care, most Democrats voted against--on the child credit,
    most Democrats voted against it. We tried to get rid of the marriage
    penalty. It's a simple concept, by the way. You shouldn't penalize
    marriage in the Tax Code; you ought to encourage--most Democrats voted
    against it. When we tried to get the death tax on the road to
    extinction, most Democrats voted against it. We've got a record of
    cutting taxes, and they've got a record of opposing tax cuts. It's night
    and day. It is a clear example of the philosophical difference that
    divides Republicans and Democrats.
        I remember in 2003 when we cut the taxes, one of the leading
    Democrats stood up and said, ``Cutting taxes
    will do nothing to create jobs.'' Well, since that person uttered those
    famous words, our economy has added 5.7 million new jobs. This economy
    is strong.
        This economy is strong because we let you have more of your own
    money, and we intend to keep it that way. Just the other day, a top
    Democrat--the top Democrat on the House
    tax writing committee--that's called the Ways and Means Committee;
    they'll be the people who decide whether or not your taxes go up or
    down--said this, ``I can't think of one of our tax cuts that should be
    extended.''
        Now let me try to boil down Washington-speak for you. If the tax
    cuts are not extended, your taxes go up. It's kind of like an employer
    saying, you know, ``I'm not going to extend your pay raise,'' see. And
    so if they're going to say, ``Well, we're just not going to extend the
    tax cuts,'' that means they're going to run up your taxes. Running up
    your taxes would be wrong for our economy, and it would be wrong for the
    working families of the United States.
        So I asked Charlie, I said, what's he making a priority? He said,
    ``I'm making property taxes a priority in the State of Florida.'' You
    put him in office, he's going to cut your property taxes, and you can
    take that to the bank.
        You know, we enacted some good legislation when it came to making
    sure our seniors have got good health care. You might remember, the
    Medicare program had gone a little stale. We would pay for surgeries but
    not for the prescription drugs that would prevent the surgery from being
    needed in the first place. And that didn't make any sense. My attitude
    is, if you're going to provide a service for our seniors, let's provide
    a good service.

    [[Page 1685]]

        And so we modernized Medicare, and today, the bills that seniors pay
    for prescription drugs is way down, and the days of seniors--poor
    seniors having to choose between food and medicine, those days are over.
    And I'm going to need a Governor, just like Jeb
    did, to make sure the modernization of this Medicare program is
    available for all of Florida's seniors.
        When I was the Governor of Texas, I used to say, education is to the
    State what national defense is to the Federal Government. I think it's
    the most important priority of a State, is to make sure the public
    school system insists upon excellence for every single child. And that's
    what Charlie thinks too. That's why I called him ``Chalkboard.''
    [Laughter] He understands that a Governor, just like your Governor has done, needs to lead when it comes to challenging
    mediocrity when we find it in the public schools.
        It's essential that our public schools work. It's essential that we
    set high standards and measure to make sure children are learning how to
    read and write and add and subtract. And if we find it early, we'll
    correct problems early so no child is left behind in America or in the
    State of Florida.
        These are the issues that the people of Florida are going to have to
    decide upon, you know: taxes, fiscal sanity, making sure the health care
    system works, and making sure every single child gets educated. And I
    think if Floridians of all parties--or even if they're not of a party--
    pay attention to the debate, they'll find that Charlie Crist stands with
    them. He'll be a people's Governor. He likes to shake hands; he likes
    people. That's the kind of Governor you want. You want somebody who
    feels comfortable with the people of a State, somebody who can make
    decisions, and somebody who can set a clear vision on behalf of this
    vital State. And that's Charlie Crist.
        I want to talk a little bit about the stakes of the world in which
    we live. We're at war. We're at war with a group of ideologues that use
    murder as a weapon to intimidate and create fear. I wish I could report
    otherwise.
        I vowed after September the 11th, 2001, that I would use every one
    of our national assets in order to protect you. The most important job
    of any government in this day and age is to protect the American people
    from further attack. That starts with making sure our homeland is secure
    and making sure those on the frontline of protecting you have the tools
    necessary to be able to protect you. We have to find out what the enemy
    is thinking in order to stop attacks. If an Al Qaida or an Al Qaida
    associate is making a phone call into the United States, we need to know
    why in order to be able to protect you from further attacks.
        If somebody is moving money around to finance a terrorist operation,
    we want to know why they're moving money around, to protect you. If the
    CIA and the FBI need to be able to share information to protect you, we
    need to make sure those walls are permanently torn down. In order to
    protect the United States of America, we must give those on the
    frontline that are protecting this Nation the tools necessary to do so
    within the Constitution of the United States, and that is precisely what
    this administration is doing.
        But the facts are these: The enemy only has to be right one time to
    protect you--to hurt us, and we've got to be right 100 percent of the
    time to protect you, which means that the best way to protect the
    American people is to stay on the offense against these killers, defeat
    them overseas so we do not have to face them here at home, and bring
    them to justice before they hurt us again.
        And that's exactly what the United States of America is doing, with
    a lot of other nations. We're keeping the pressure on them. It's hard to
    plot and plan when you're on the run. And that's what we have been doing
    for 5\1/2\ years, and that's what we will continue to do so long as I'm
    your

    [[Page 1686]]

    President. The most important job we have is to protect the American
    people.
        You know, there's an enemy that still wants to strike. I mean, it
    should be clear to the American people, particularly after we recently,
    working with the Brits, foiled suicide attacks, bombing these airplanes
    when they're flying into the United States. These are ruthless people.
    You cannot negotiate with them; you can't hope that their ambitions go
    away; you can't try to--you know, therapy won't work. [Laughter] The
    only thing that matters is to bring them to justice. And make no mistake
    about it--[applause].
        And so our strategy is twofold. On the one hand, we'll protect you
    by staying on the offense. But we've got another weapon beside a
    fantastic military and great intelligence people, and another weapon is
    liberty and freedom.
        First, let me talk about the first part of our strategy. One is that
    when the President says something, he better mean it. And when I said,
    ``If you harbor a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist or house a
    terrorist, you're equally as guilty as the terrorist, and you will be
    held to account.'' That's why we removed the Taliban that was providing
    safe haven for Al Qaida, from Afghanistan. Twenty-five million people
    now are free.
        The second part of the strategy is, when you see a threat, you must
    take threats seriously before they come and hurt us in the United
    States. It's a different doctrine than we had in the past, but these
    threats are different than the threats we've had in the past.
        I want to remind you that--what the world was like in 2001. In Iraq,
    there was a state sponsor of terror. There was a tyrant who brutalized his own people. This man was the sworn
    enemy of the United States of America. He paid suicide--families of
    suicide bombers to attack young democracies, for example. He had used
    weapons of mass destruction. He was a threat.
        Now, before the President commits troops, he must try diplomacy. I
    want you to walk back in that period of time and remember resolution
    after resolution after resolution that came through the United Nations,
    and yet the tyrant didn't change his mind.
    Saddam Hussein chose war, and war he got, and the world is better off
    without Saddam Hussein in power.
        And now Iraq is the central front on the war on terror. I hear
    people in the United States, ``Well, that's not true.'' My advice to
    them is to listen carefully to the words of the enemy. Usama bin
    Laden has called Iraq world war III. He and
    Mr. Zawahiri, the number-two man in Al
    Qaida, have made it clear that their intention is to drive us out of
    Iraq. They want the death and suffering we see on our TV screens to
    cause us to abandon the 12 million people who said, ``We want to be
    free.''
        And they want us to leave because they want to topple moderate
    governments in the region. They want to get a hold of oil resources.
    Imagine these radical jihadists, these extremists who've subverted a
    great religion, controlling oil. They would--they would love to create
    economic havoc on the United States of America. They have clearly stated
    their ambitions. The Commander in Chief must always take the words of
    the enemy seriously. And like them, I see Iraq as the central front in
    the war on terror, and unlike them, however, I refuse to yield to their
    barbarism. And we're going to stand strong with the 12 million Iraqis
    and help that young democracy survive for the sake of peace for our
    children and our grandchildren.
        And it is hard work, but America has done this kind of work before.
    I believe we're in a great ideological struggle. It's the ideological
    struggle of the 21st century. On the one hand, you have reasonable
    people--moms who want their children to grow up in a peaceful world;
    decent people who can't stand terror and violence and who long to be
    free--versus ideologues, people bound together by a common philosophy
    who use murder as a weapon. These are the stakes of the 21st century.

    [[Page 1687]]

    And I'm confident we will prevail, because I believe that liberty,
    liberty and freedom have got the capacity to overcome the dark vision of
    these ideologues.
        We've seen it happen in our history before. We have seen liberty
    triumph over hopelessness and despair. See, in the short run, we will
    stay on the offense, and we will help those brave souls who want to
    fight the enemy overseas so we don't have to face them here. In the long
    run, we will lay the foundation of peace for our children by spreading
    liberty.
        Now, one way to make this point to you and to the American citizens
    is to remind people about an interesting experience that I just had,
    when I flew to Memphis, Tennessee, with the Prime Minister of
    Japan. Prime Minister Koizumi and I went
    to Elvis's place. [Laughter] It was an interesting experience. I chose
    to go for three reasons: One, I had never been to Elvis's place--
    [laughter]--and I thought that would be fun to do; plus, Laura wanted to go to Elvis's place. [Laughter] Secondly--and
    secondly, the Prime Minister wanted to go to Elvis's place--[laughter]--
    because he's a big Elvis fan. He loved Elvis Presley. Isn't that
    interesting? The Prime Minister of Japan thought Elvis was ``It.''
        But I also wanted to make a point to the American citizens, and it's
    this: My dad, and many of your relatives,
    fought the Japanese. They were the sworn enemy of the United States of
    America. And yet his son had invited the Prime Minister of the former sworn enemy to travel to Elvis
    Presley's place. And on that plane going down there, we talked about
    peace. We talked about what we could do, working together, to deal with
    Kim Jong Il in North Korea. We talked about the
    fact that Japan had 1,000 of her troops alongside our brave troops in
    Iraq to help this young democracy defeat the forces of hatred. We talked
    about HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa and how the United States and
    Japan can work together to save lives. We talked about feeding the
    hungry. We talked about helping the fledgling democracy in Afghanistan
    survive against the Taliban's attempts to overthrow them.
        Isn't it interesting? My dad fought the
    Japanese--or our dad fought the Japanese, and his son is now talking
    about the peace with the sworn enemy. Can you imagine somebody in 1948,
    after this terrible war, with all the hatred and bloodshed, standing up
    in front of the country and saying, ``I predict an American President
    someday will be taking a leader of the sworn enemy to the singer's
    house.'' [Laughter] They would have run him out of town. [Laughter]
        But it happened; it happened because Japan adopted a Japanese-style
    democracy. And the lesson of history is that liberty has got the
    capacity to change enemies into allies. Liberty has got the capacity to
    lay the foundation of peace. Someday, an American President will be
    sitting down with duly elected leaders in the Middle East talking about
    the peace, and a generation of Americans will be better off.
        These are trying times for our country. We've got a lot of stuff
    going for us, though, you know. We've got a fantastic military. And I
    will assure you this, that our military will have whatever it takes to
    do their job and defend this country.
        But we also have a lot of people who understand that liberty is not
    just an American concept. Liberty is universal. I personally believe
    there is an Almighty, and I believe that that Almighty's gift to each
    man and woman on the whole face of the Earth is the desire to be free.
    And I know that when people are able to realize that ambition, no matter
    what their religion, no matter where they live, the world will become a
    more peaceful place.
        It's an honor to be the President of a country that has got such
    good values, determined country, a country that knows that history can
    repeat itself with perseverance and strength of character. No, these are
    challenging times, but out of these times will come a more secure
    America and a more peaceful world.

    [[Page 1688]]

        Thanks for helping Charlie. May God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:55 p.m. at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando. In
    his remarks, he referred to Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida; Mayor Richard T.
    Crotty of Orange County, FL, and his son, Tyler; former President Saddam
    Hussein of Iraq; Usama bin Laden, leader of the Al Qaida terrorist
    organization; and Chairman Kim Jong Il of North Korea.