    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
    [August 16, 2006]
    [Pages 1515-1521]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Gubernatorial Candidate Lynn C. Swann in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
    August 16, 2006

        Thank you all for coming. Thanks for being here. The people of
    Pennsylvania know that when you draft Lynn Swann--[laughter]--you get a
    man who performs. I am proud to be here with the next Governor of the
    great State of Pennsylvania, Lynn Swann. I know something about being a
    Governor. Here's what you need. You need somebody who tells the truth,
    somebody who sets the people's agenda above political parties, somebody
    who makes decisions based upon principle, not based upon polls or focus
    groups, somebody who doesn't go around the State trying to become
    everybody's friend, but somebody who goes around the State to

    [[Page 1516]]

    try to improve the lives of the people of the State. And there's no
    doubt in my mind that Lynn Swann has got the characteristics necessary
    to be a great Governor of this important State.
        And I'm proud to be here with Lynn and Jim Matthews. You know, one of the interesting things I'll never
    forget, one time I was campaigning for my dad in the sixties in Texas. And I went to a county
    courthouse on his behalf, and it was empty. It turns out he was a
    Republican, and they were all Democrats. [Laughter] It was my first
    lesson of how important it is to stay in touch with the people who run
    the counties. You see, really good politicians and smart people
    understand that county politics is where you find the pulse of the
    people and where you're able to do your best work. And so it's a smart
    thing that Lynn Swann asked Jim Matthews, a man who understands the
    county structure in Pennsylvania, to run on his ticket. You've got
    vision and you've got experience side by side, which makes a powerful
    ticket for the people of Pennsylvania.
        I just had my picture taken with some of you, and about every fourth
    person said, ``Where's Laura?'' [Laughter] What
    they're really saying, ``How come you didn't send Laura and you stay at
    home?'' [Laughter] Laura sends her love to the Swanns. She is very fond
    of Lynn and Charena. She respects them like I
    respect them. These are noble, decent people. They don't have to be
    running for politics, see. They can be sitting, doing a lot of other
    things--watching a football game, talking on TV--[laughter]--helping
    people help themselves. They're great, charitable people. They've got
    big hearts. But instead, they've decided to serve a State they love and
    a people they love. So Laura stands with me in saying to the people of
    Pennsylvania, you've got two really fine people in Lynn and Charena. Put
    them in office, and you'll be proud of the job they'll do for you.
        It's good to meet Lynn's sons and Jim's sons. There's nothing
    better than having a family by your side when you're running for office.
    This is a big State you got here, and it takes a lot of work. And these
    candidates are going to do the work necessary to get elected. I know
    they'll work hard. There's nothing better to--coming home to somebody
    you care for after a hard day's work. And so when you're voting for a
    candidate, you're really voting for a family as well.
        And I like people who put their families ahead of all else in life.
    I like people who prioritize. I think it's going to be good for this
    State to have a Governor who sets the right priorities. It starts with
    faith and family, and then you can get into politics.
        I'm proud to be here with Congressman Joe Pitts. Joe, thank you for serving the district with distinction.
    I'm glad you're here. I appreciate you being here.
        I just came from the district next door, where they put me on a
    Harley-Davidson. [Laughter] It was a static display--[laughter]--
    fortunately. [Laughter] But that district is also represented by a
    person of dignity and character, and that's Todd Platts. Congressman, thanks for coming.
        The attorney general--you're going to need to have a good attorney
    general by your side, Governor, and you got one in Tom Corbett. Thanks for coming, General.
        I want to thank Rob Gleason and
    Bob Asher and all who else are involved with
    party politics. I want to thank those of you who have given of your
    hard-earned money to help these folks. You can't run unless the people
    are willing to contribute. That's just the way it is. And the fact that
    Lynn and Jim have raised so much money tonight
    is a good sign. I want to thank you for those of you who have helped
    organize this event, and thank you for giving of your money. It really
    means a lot to them. I know. I speak with firsthand experience how much
    it means to have people willing to contribute.
        And now you need to contribute your time. You need to go to your
    coffee shops and your community centers and your

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    houses of worship, and you need to talk to your friends and neighbors
    and let them know the quality of the people that are seeking their vote.
    You need to let them know that these two good men will do a fine job for
    the people of Pennsylvania. Getting ready, coming down the stretch here
    pretty soon, going to need you to put up the signs and lick the
    envelopes and make the phone calls and knock on the doors. They need
    your help. They'll work hard, but they can't win alone. And so it's one
    thing to give of your money, and now I hope you give of your time when
    they're coming down the stretch, because they can win this race. And
    when they do, Pennsylvania will be better for it.
        Not only do you have to have the character to serve in office, but
    you have to run for a reason. There's got to be a compelling reason why
    you seek the vote, and Lynn Swann has got compelling reasons why he'll
    be a good Governor for the State of Pennsylvania. It starts with his
    philosophy about the role of government in the economy. He understands
    that governments don't create wealth, that governments create an
    environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish or which the small-
    business owner can grow bigger or which a person can realize their
    dreams by creating their own company. That's the kind of Governor you
    want. You want a Governor who understands entrepreneurship; a Governor,
    when the small-business person looks out and says, ``That person
    understands my needs, and he understands my concerns.'' And that means
    you have to have a Governor who is willing to cut the taxes on the
    people, creating the jobs and doing the work.
        He said, ``I know how to prioritize a budget.'' If you don't
    prioritize in State government or Federal Government, they'll figure out
    how to spend every single dime that they raise from you. But if you can
    get somebody to prioritize, that leaves money for you to stay in your
    pocket. See, that's how you end up cutting the taxes. You say, ``Here's
    my priorities; here's what I think is essential,'' and then with the
    money left over--since I recognize it's your money, you get to keep it.
    It's amazing what happens to the economy when you cut the taxes on the
    people who work. I know him well enough to say to the people of
    Pennsylvania, when he says he's going to cut the taxes by a billion
    dollars, you can take it to the bank.
        You know, one of the issues that hurts people a lot is property
    taxes. People struggle to own their own home. One of the things we stand
    for is ownership. We love it when somebody opens the door to the place
    they live and says, ``Welcome to my home; this is my piece of
    property.'' We stand strong for the ownership society. It's harder to
    own a home when your property taxes are going up too high. It's good to
    have somebody running for Governor who says, ``I hear the problems you
    have when it comes to owning your home, and I'll do everything I can to
    cut your property taxes as well.''
        I used to tell people this: Education is to a State what national
    defense is to the Federal Government. Education must be the number-one
    priority of your Governor. And it is the number-one priority for Lynn
    Swann. See, one of the reasons he's decided to run is because he's
    concerned about an education system that's not educating every child.
    Sure, it educates some children, but we want an education system to
    educate every child, and here's our vision of how it's done.
        First, you must have leadership that sets high standards. It's
    amazing what happens when you have low standards. Guess what happens?
    You get low results. It's what I call the soft bigotry of low
    expectations. If you don't have high standards, you get lousy results,
    particularly in some neighborhoods. And that's unacceptable to a person
    like Lynn Swann and me.
        Secondly, you measure. You say to somebody, ``Are you achieving the
    results I expect?'' There's a justified role for that, as

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    far as I'm concerned, in government. The Federal Government spends a lot
    of money, about 7 percent of the education budget, around the country.
    I've said, since we're spending 7 percent, we'd like to see the results
    for the money we spent. Lynn Swann says the same thing. He understands
    the primary driver of education in Pennsylvania is the State. Therefore,
    he has got a legitimate right to say to the educators, ``We like what
    you do; we stand squarely with you, but please show us whether or not a
    child can read or write and add and subtract early, before it's too
    late.''
        There's a pitiful practice in some schools that say, ``You're too
    hard to educate; we're just going to shuffle you through.'' It may be
    the color of somebody's skin or somebody's demographics that says to
    somebody, ``We're just going to quit on you.'' That's not right. It's
    not good for Pennsylvania. It's not good for the United States. You need
    to have a Governor who'll set high standards and hold people to account.
    And when you find people learning to read, write, and add and subtract,
    you say, thank you for what you're doing. But when you don't, you
    challenge the status quo so no child is left behind in America.
        I like his education plan. It's well-thought-out. It makes a lot of
    sense. But most importantly, it's going to deliver the results for the
    families of Pennsylvania. And it doesn't matter whether you're
    Republican or Democrat or independent; these are results that affect all
    children. And that's the kind of Governor you need.
        One of the things I learned when I campaigned here was that you had
    a problem with your doctors, like, a real problem. As a matter of fact,
    I was deeply concerned when I sat down at these roundtables with ob-gyns
    to find out what it's like to try to practice medicine in the State of
    Pennsylvania. You can't have good quality of life if you can't find good
    docs. And the truth of the matter is, many of your doctors are leaving
    the State or quitting practice because of the junk and frivolous
    lawsuits.
        Now, I understand something, that these trial lawyers are strong
    politically. They're tough, and that's why you need a tough Governor to
    stare them down and say, for the sake of good medical care, for the sake
    of availability and affordability of medicine, we've got to end these
    frivolous and junk lawsuits that are hurting the people of Pennsylvania.
        Now, he's got the right platform. He's running on the right issues,
    and he's running for the right reason. He's a fellow that doesn't need
    to say, ``I try to make myself feel better by being Governor.'' He's had
    plenty of accolades--[laughter]--just ask the Dallas Cowboy fans.
    [Laughter] See, he's not running for his ego. He's running because he
    wants to serve the people of this State, and he's got a platform that
    makes a lot of sense. And I'm proud to help him. I'm proud to help him.
    And I know you are as well.
        You know, we're living in historic times. These are difficult times
    for the American people because we're in a war. We're in a war we did
    not ask for but in a war that we must wage and win for the sake of our
    future generation of children. Much of my thinking about the world
    changed on September the 11th. I recognized on that day that we face a
    threat and that the responsibility of the Federal Government, working
    with State government, is to do everything we can to secure the homeland
    to protect the people. That's my most important job now, and it's the
    most important job of a lot of other people too.
        I learned that we face an enemy that knows no bounds of cruelty. I
    understand the nature of this enemy. This is an enemy that has an
    ideology. Some people say, well, this may be a law enforcement matter.
    No, these are people that are politically driven. They've got motives.
    They do not believe in freedom. They don't believe in freedom of
    religion; they don't believe in freedom of dissent; they don't believe
    in women's rights. They have a backward view of the world. And yet they
    want to impose their

    [[Page 1519]]

    vision on other people. That's what they're trying to do. And the United
    States of America must never retreat and let them have their way.
        This is a different kind of war. Veterans of World War II and Korea
    would tell you, we were able to measure progress based upon miles gained
    or based upon tanks destroyed, or however people measured war in those
    days. This is different. We're facing people with an ideology but
    without a nation-state. Sometimes they have people sponsor them and help
    them, but this is not a nation-state. It's a different kind of conflict.
    And it's hard on the American people, and I understand that. But we
    shouldn't let the difficulties of facing this war force us to retreat
    from the world. If your most important responsibility is to protect the
    American people, the best way to do so is to stay on the offense and
    bring these people to justice before they hurt us again.
        A different kind of war requires a different kind of approach. It
    means we better have good intelligence in order to be able to figure out
    the designs of the enemy before they strike. Just last week, we had good
    intelligence in working with our partners in Great Britain to disrupt a
    plot. I know it's hard for Americans to believe this, but the enemy that
    attacked us before has got people that want to act like them, are maybe
    taking instruction from--I can't tell you whether this plot we disrupted
    was Al Qaida. I'm not going to say that unless I'm certain it was. But
    it's the kind of activities that Al Qaida has done in the past, and that
    is to place suiciders on airplanes to destroy innocent life, trying to
    shake the will of the United States, trying to send a political message.
        And so we've got to use new tactics, new efforts, new assets to
    protect ourselves against an enemy that will strike us at any moment.
    This war on terror is more than just chasing down people hiding in caves
    or preventing people from getting on airplanes to blow them up; the war
    on terror is fought in many theaters, and the central front in the war
    on terror now is Iraq. I say it's the central front because that's what
    the enemy themselves have said, that they want to drive us from the
    region, that they view it as the central front as well. They've got
    objectives in Iraq. They want the United States to suffer a defeat in
    Iraq. They want us to retreat from Iraq. They want to create such havoc
    on our TV screens by killing innocent people that the American people
    finally say, we've had enough, leaving Iraq before the mission is
    complete.
        And the mission is to have a country, a free country that can
    sustain itself and govern itself and defend itself and serve as an ally
    in the war on terror in the heart of the Middle East. That's the
    mission. And they want us to leave; they want us to cut and run. And
    there's some good people in our country who believe we should cut and
    run. They're not bad people when they say that; they're decent people. I
    just happen to believe they're wrong, and they're wrong for this reason:
    This would be a defeat for the United States in a key battleground in
    the global war on terror. It would create a--leaving before we complete
    our mission would create a terrorist state in the heart of the Middle
    East, a country with huge oil reserves that the terrorist network would
    be willing to use to extract economic pain from those of us who believe
    in freedom.
        If we were to leave before the mission is complete, it would hurt
    U.S. credibility. Who would want to stand with the United States of
    America if we didn't complete the mission, and a mission that can be
    completed and will be completed? If we cut and run, if we don't complete
    the mission, what would that say to those brave men and women who have
    volunteered to wear the uniform of the United States of America? If we
    leave before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the enemy will
    follow us home.

    [[Page 1520]]

        By defeating the enemy in Iraq, jihadists who try to spread
    sectarian violence through brutal suicide bombings, jihadists who have
    declared openly that their mission is to convert that country into a
    safe haven for them to launch attacks, when we defeat them, there will
    be a major defeat for the terrorists. It will strengthen the spread of
    democracy in the Middle East.
        Look, our strategy is this: We will stay on the offense. And we are.
    Any time we get a hint that somebody is going to hurt us, we respond.
    And we're keeping the pressure on the enemy. By the way, anybody who
    follows me should always understand, you must keep the pressure on the
    enemy; otherwise, they will put the pressure on us. They still exist.
    It's important to understand this is a global war on terror, not an
    isolated moment of law enforcement. This is the first war of the 21st
    century, and the United States of America must lead that war. And we
    must be firm, and we must be resolved.
        We will stay on the offense so we don't have to face them here in
    the United States of America. The way to defeat this enemy in the long
    term is to defeat their hateful ideology with a hopeful ideology; is for
    the United States of America to understand the power of liberty to help
    transform people's lives to the better and the power of liberty to help
    spread the peace that we want for our children and our grandchildren.
        You know, when you have resentment and anger, that breeds hatred;
    that breeds recruiting grounds for people to become a suicider. Imagine
    the mentality of somebody willing to kill for an ideology that just
    doesn't--is not hopeful, and yet I believe a lot of that has to do with
    the fact that parts of the world breed resentment. And I believe that is
    due in part to the nature of the governments. I believe a system of
    government that encourages people to participate and a government that
    says, ``We respond to your will,'' is the kind of government that ends
    up creating a hopeful alternative to resentment and hatred.
        Our foreign policy in the past in the Middle East has been, let's
    just work for stability; let us not care what the form of government is;
    let's just make sure everything appears stable. The problem was, that
    foreign policy came home on September the 11th, 2001. It didn't work.
    What looked placid, what looked serene, what looked calm was not.
    Beneath the surface was this deep resentment brewing that caused people
    to come and kill 3,000 of our fellow citizens. The best way to defeat
    this enemy in the long run is to spread liberty, is to give people the
    hope of freedom.
        Isn't it interesting today that the most violent parts of the world
    are where young democracies are trying to take root? Isn't it
    interesting that Hizballah would attack Israel, a democracy in the heart
    of the Middle East, try to destabilize the Middle East so that Lebanon
    doesn't get to be a strong democracy, and starts to try to turn the
    world against Israel? Isn't it interesting that the young democracy of
    Iraq is the place where the enemy is trying to stop the progress? That
    should tell the American people the following things: One, we face an
    enemy that has an ideology that can't stand freedom; and secondly, as
    freedom progresses, it changes the world for the better. Otherwise, the
    enemy wouldn't be trying to stop it.
        And so in the long term, the United States of America must take the
    lead in spreading liberty. And we've got to have great confidence that
    it will work. I believe there's an Almighty, and I believe in the heart
    and soul of everybody is the gift of freedom from that Almighty. I
    believe Muslim women, Hindu women, Christian women, Jewish women want
    their children to grow up in peace and hope. I believe there is the
    universality of freedom, and I know it works.
        You might remember, I recently went down to Graceland--that's
    Elvis's place--with the Prime Minister of Japan. Wasn't that interesting? [Laughter] I thought it
    was. [Laughter] More importantly, my

    [[Page 1521]]

    guest thought it was. He was an Elvis fan. I bet you, in 1949, 1950, if
    somebody had stood up and said, ``You know, I bet one of these days an
    American President is going to take the Japanese Prime Minister to visit
    the heartland,'' they'd have said, ``Man, you are nuts.'' [Laughter]
        It's interesting, isn't it, that the Prime Minister of a country with which we had a mighty war,
    thousands lost their lives--as a matter of fact, it took us, I don't
    know how long, a decade or so to even get racial slurs out of our
    vocabulary because of the enmity that arose as a result of fighting the
    Japanese. We couldn't stand them, and they couldn't stand us. And yet 60
    years after the end of World War II, George W. Bush flies on the
    airplane with Junichiro Koizumi to go to Elvis's place. [Laughter] And
    we didn't spend much time talking about Elvis's place on the way down;
    we talked about the peace. Isn't that interesting? A former enemy, the
    sworn enemy of the United States, the leader of that country now sat
    down with the President of the United States doing something that our
    forefathers could not have possibly imagined--that we talked about the
    peace.
        Something happened between World War II and today, and what happened
    was, Japan adopted a Japanese-style democracy. Something nobody would
    have thought as possible after World War II, except for Harry S. Truman
    and some other people that had great faith in the desire for people to
    live in freedom and in the capacity to change--for freedom to change an
    enemy into an ally.
        Someday, an American President will be sitting down talking to a
    duly elected leader of Iraq, talking about how to keep the peace. And
    our children will be better off.
        The stakes are high. But I clearly see where we need to go. And the
    stakes are high in Pennsylvania, and Lynn Swann clearly sees where the
    State needs to go. You can't lead unless you see the end result. You've
    got a man who has got the vision. He's got the skills necessary to lead
    toward that vision. He's the right man for the job. I'm honored to be
    with him.
        I want to thank you all for supporting Lynn Swann and Jim
    Matthews. God bless you all, and God bless
    America.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:18 p.m. at the Lancaster Host Resort and
    Conference Center. In his remarks, he referred to James R. Matthews,
    candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania; Robert A. Gleason,
    Jr., chairman, Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania; Robert Asher,
    Pennsylvania national committeeman, Republican National Committee; and
    Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan.