[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 18 (Monday, May 6, 2002)]
[Pages 704-709]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Luncheon for Representative Heather Wilson in Albuquerque

April 29, 2002

    The President. Gosh, thanks for that warm welcome. It's great to be 
back in New Mexico. I'm glad to know my Texas passport is still active. 
[Laughter]
    I'm here because it is very important for the people of New Mexico 
to send Heather Wilson back to the United States Congress. I'm here to 
give my whole-hearted support to her candidacy.

[[Page 705]]

    Before I spend a little time fleshing that out, I want to say 
something about the senior Senator from New Mexico. There's no finer 
American in the United States Senate than Pete Domenici. I'm proud to 
call him friend, and I'm proud to get lectured by him all the time. 
[Laughter] It seems like he's always got important issues on his mind, 
the labs, mental health parity. But he is a great ally and a really fine 
Senator.
    I'm also honored to have served with--been the President at the same 
time that Joe Skeen was the United States Congressman from another 
congressional district here in New Mexico. We're going to miss old Joe, 
but I'm confident he still has my address and willing to give----
    Audience member. [Inaudible]
    The President. That's good. But thank you for your service.
    I want to thank John Dendahl, the party chairman of the Republican 
Party of New Mexico, and all the party leaders who are here. I 
particularly want to say something about the grassroots, the people who 
work the phone banks and lick the envelopes and do all the work 
necessary to keep people like me and Pete and Heather in office. And I 
want to thank you for your loyalty; I want to thank you for your passion 
for our political party; and I want to thank you for the endless hours 
you put on our behalf.
    I want to thank the Lieutenant Governor and all the State officials 
who are here.
    And I want to thank you all for supporting Heather. Here's the way I 
feel: Anytime you find somebody who brings such class and dignity to a 
political office, we as Americans owe our support to her. And Heather 
Wilson brings a lot of class and a lot of dignity.
    You know, in Washington there's a lot of--there can be a lot of 
noise, a lot of shrill voices, people who are--people up there sometimes 
are the ones who like to divide people into camps and call names and 
point fingers. They think that's effective, and it's such a wonderful 
contrast to have the quiet dignity and the competence of Heather Wilson 
in the United States Congress. It is so good and refreshing and good for 
our democracy and good for our country that people like Heather are 
willing to serve. She can get things done for New Mexico.
    The thing I appreciate, Heather, is she is there for the right 
reason, to serve the people, to represent the people of New Mexico. And 
I'm proud of our political party, make no mistake about it, but I'm 
proud of the fact that Heather puts our country first, that she 
understands the importance of our Nation and what it stands for.
    I remember so well going to Griegos Elementary with Heather. She 
said, ``You come to my district. I want you to go, first and foremost, 
to an elementary school.'' Because she understands that when we educate 
our children, the American Dream will be extended to every neighborhood. 
I appreciate that spirit.
    She told me that the day I signed the no-child-left-behind 
legislation, which was a significant piece of educational reform, 
supported both by Heather and by Pete, that she went back to Griegos. 
And it was a fitting place for her to go, because this is a piece of 
legislation which says that America will refuse to condemn any child to 
failure. It is a piece of public--legislation that says to our public 
schools, we'll set high standards for every child--I mean every child--
that we trust the local people to chart the path to excellence, and that 
we refuse to accept a system that simply shuffles children through. And 
the beneficiaries of this type of mentality are going to be the children 
who go to Griegos, and Heather knows that. And I want to thank you for 
your strong support on education reform. It means so much to this part 
of the world, to all our country that we got this legislation done.
    I also appreciate so very much Heather's values. You know, we're 
coming in; I said--I'm trying to get her to talk about issues; she wants 
to talk about Little League baseball. [Laughter] Here I am, trying to 
tell her what's going on the world, which we eventually got to, but the 
first thing on her mind was to let me know that her son and Jay's son is 
a Little League player and how proud of the fact that she was that the 
lad suits up, gives it his all, occasionally gets a base hit. Must be 
Jay's genes. [Laughter] But she loves her family. She loves her husband. 
And I think that's also an important trait for anybody to serve our 
public well.

[[Page 706]]

    And Jay, I want to thank you for your patience and understanding and 
support for this fine lady who serves New Mexico in the United States 
Congress.
    I also want to thank Heather for her strong support for Kirtland Air 
Force Base. People got to--I think it's important, when people start 
heading in these voting booths next fall, that--particularly in this 
part of the world--that they understand Heather's influence, that she's 
making a difference, that she's getting things done for this part of the 
world. And one of the things that she's good at is understanding the 
importance for national defense. Kirtland Air Force Base is an 
incredible part of that national defense of the United States.
    I remember so well campaigning here in New Mexico and then coming 
back to the Barelas Job Opportunity Center, which she and Pete helped 
get started. Pete and Heather were telling me that there's been 6,000 
people that have been helped in this job center, people to be able to 
find work. And I want to thank you all for inviting me back for--when we 
opened up that facility, and I want to thank you for leading on that.
    But jobs is an incredibly important part of Heather's agenda, and 
it's an incredibly important part of mine. And it--here's the way I feel 
about it: If anybody's looking for work and can't find work, we've got a 
job problem. And I know the numbers are beginning to look better, but 
you know, I leave the numbers for the statisticians and the bean 
counters. We're practical people that's--got to keep asking the 
question, how do we keep America employed, and how do we keep the job 
base growing?
    And one other thing Heather understands is the role of Government is 
not to create wealth but to create an environment in which small 
businesses can grow and the entrepreneurs of America can flourish. And 
we campaigned on the idea that if you let people have more of their own 
money--I emphasize ``their own money''--that there would be more money 
to spend, more demand for goods and services. And with more demand for 
goods and services, somebody will produce the goods and services. And 
when they produce the goods and services, it means somebody is going to 
find work.
    This tax cut that I campaigned on and fought for, that Pete and 
Heather and Joe supported, was the right thing for America at this point 
in our history. And it has made a big difference in helping people find 
work.
    Heather also understands the need to have fairness when it comes to 
Medicare. And she is going to take a leadership role in helping to 
provide prescription drug coverage within the Medicare system, so our 
seniors do not go without. It's an important initiative, and thank 
goodness she's willing to lend her talent to get this job done. She's 
close to the Speaker on this issue, and when you're close to the Speaker 
on this issue, you have a good chance to make a significant difference 
for the elderly of not only New Mexico and the United States of America.
    There's a lot more issues that we could talk about where Heather has 
taken a leadership role, but I do want to talk about one more, and that 
is energy. Our Nation has not had an energy policy. And I came along 
with the Vice President, and I tasked him to develop an energy policy, 
one that recognizes that technology is going to help us conserve better. 
And we need to conserve more. We need to be wiser about how we use our 
energy. And part of our vision and part of our plan and part of our 
initiative is to make sure that we're able to get power to the consumer 
across a modern infrastructure, as opposed to one that is now aging and 
decrepit.
    But we also recognize that it is important for us to find more 
energy in America, that we ought to produce more. We have a national 
security problem. Over 50 percent of our energy comes from other 
countries, and some of those countries don't like us. Some of them 
aren't our friends. And so for the sake of our national security and for 
the sake of our economic security, we need an energy bill. One passed 
the House, and I want to thank Heather for her leadership. One has 
passed the Senate, and I appreciate Pete for his leadership. And now 
it's time for Congress to act and get a bill to my desk which I can 
sign.
    I mentioned national security, and that's on my mind these days. 
Every morning when I'm there in Washington, I walk into the

[[Page 707]]

beautiful Oval Office and read a threat assessment prepared by our 
intelligence agencies, and it's in a list of what we're learning and 
what we think and what we know about an enemy that still wants to hit 
America. So every day I'm reminded that my biggest task and most 
important job is to protect the homeland.
    And we're making progress. We're still a vulnerable nation, and the 
reason we're vulnerable is because we've got an enemy that hates us, an 
enemy that is nothing but cold-blooded killers. That's all they are, as 
far as I'm concerned. We're doing a much better job of sharing 
information--of gathering information and sharing it. To put it in 
Midland, Texas, terms: Any time we get a hint, we're following up on it. 
Every time we get a sense that something may be about to happen or 
somebody is trying to attack a U.S. citizen or facility, you just need 
to know we're responding. Our number one priority of our law enforcement 
agencies around America is to run down every lead, every hint.
    We've also got a strategy here at home to deal with bioterrorism. 
And that's a real threat to America, but we must be prepared if such a 
threat were to come. We've got an initiative to make sure that our 
borders are more secure. We've got to do a better job at the INS of 
understanding who is coming into our country, why they're coming into 
our country, and how long they intend to stay in our country. And if 
they're going to be here for a short period of time, are they actually 
leaving our country? For the sake of our national security, we've got to 
reform the INS and bring it up to speed and make it a modern agency with 
the capacity to gather and disperse information in a modern way.
    But the best way to secure the homeland for America is to run these 
killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice. And it's not going 
to be easy, nor is it going to happen as quickly as some might like. I 
do not have a calendar on my desk that says, ``At such and such a time, 
you will stop. You, President Bush, on such and such a date will have 
run out the string, and it's time for you to quit.'' That calendar 
doesn't exist, because my mind-frame is this: When it comes to defending 
our freedoms, no matter how long it takes, that's exactly what this 
country is going to do.
    We're not going to forget what happened on September the 11th. We've 
learned more about the enemy. We learned a good lesson, that two oceans 
can no longer protect us, that because we're an open society, we're a 
vulnerable society. But we're not going to allow our openness and our 
love for freedom to go away. I mean, one of the things the enemy wants 
to do is to say, ``You know, since you love freedom, you're under 
attack.'' And I guess the corollary is, is that, ``Get rid of your 
freedoms.'' But that's not the way we think in America. When it comes to 
defense of our country, when it comes to our defense and defending our 
values, we're plenty tough. And that's the way it's going to be, much to 
the chagrin of the killers.
    I have unleashed the United States military, and they have not let 
us down. For those of you who have got relatives in the military, a son 
or a daughter or a husband or a wife, I want to thank you, on behalf of 
a grateful nation, for their sacrifice and your understanding.
    I have submitted a budget to the United States Congress which makes 
a priority of our national defense. And I expect that--the 
appropriations process to pass the defense bill first. In times of war, 
I ought to have the defense appropriations bill on my desk as soon as 
possible. We don't need any people playing politics with the defense of 
the United States of America.
    You know, when I was campaigning in Chicago one time, they said, 
``Would you ever have a deficit?'' I said, ``I hope not.'' I said, ``I 
think it's important for us to make--to work hard to have a balanced 
budget.'' But I said, ``Yes, I'd have a deficit if I were the President 
only if we were at war or in a recession or in times of emergency.'' I 
didn't think I was going to draw the trifecta. [Laughter]
    But when it comes time to defending our freedom, we need to 
understand, even though the price of freedom is high, it is not too 
high. It is never too high. And that's what the Congress has got to say, 
and that's what the Congress has got to know.
    The other thing that's important for us is to uphold the doctrines 
that I lay out, or the country lays out. And when we said, ``If you

[[Page 708]]

harbor a terrorist, you're just as bad as a terrorist,'' I meant it, and 
the Taliban found out exactly what we meant.
    Now, one of the things that's important for our fellow citizens to 
understand is that we're not seeking revenge; we're seeking justice. And 
when we went into Afghanistan, we went in not as conquerors--we weren't 
interested in conquering anybody--we went in as liberators. And I'm so 
proud of the fact that not only is this Nation tough and strong but that 
we care deeply about young girls who had never been to school in their 
lives, and we're proud to have freed the people of Afghanistan from the 
clutches of one of the most barbaric regimes in the history of mankind.
    We've got a lot of work to do there. And so you just need to know 
that our military is going to be there for awhile. I mean, they've got 
these little pockets of these killers showing up, and we're just going 
to have to find them, keep chasing them down. We've got work to help 
this country rebuild her military, so that she can defend herself. We've 
got work about--to make sure that the humanitarian aid and assistance 
that we're so generously providing is effective. So we'll be there for 
awhile. We'll be there for awhile.
    And another reason why we're going to be there is because the second 
phase of this war--our strategy has been to deny sanctuary to any of the 
killers in anywhere else, in any other country. So when we find a 
country that looks like a safe haven for them, a place where they may 
try to bunch up and train or set up a logistical command center, we're 
shutting them down. We've got a great coalition, thanks to our Secretary 
of State and my administration. We're nurturing that coalition. We're 
reminding them that to be a member of this coalition, you've got to 
perform. We don't need any sweet talk; what we want is results. And so 
we're denying sanctuary to Al Qaida killers and terrorist killers. And 
so therefore, if they have no sanctuary, it's more likely they'll remain 
in Afghanistan, which is fine with us, because that's where we're 
prepared to chase them down.
    I wish I could tell you that--what the timetable is going to be. I 
can't. But the good news is, the American people don't expect a 
timetable. They're unified, and for that I'm grateful. We are strong, 
and for that I'm grateful. We're a disciplined nation when it comes to 
our defense, and for that I'm incredibly grateful as well.
    You know, this war on terror is bigger than just an organization. 
It's certainly bigger than one person. We've also got to deal with--and 
we will--and confront--and we will--the fact that nations--there are 
nations in this world who hate America who are developing and have 
developed weapons of mass destruction. And a nightmare scenario for 
future generations of freedom-loving people is to allow one of these 
nations to team up with a terrorist organization so that they could 
blackmail America and our friends and hold us hostage. And you just need 
to know, I'm just not going to let that happen.
    History has called us to action. History has given this chance--this 
nation a chance to lead. And that's exactly what we're going to do, so 
long as I'm the President of the United States.
    I'm pleased with the support I'm getting in Congress. I want to 
thank Pete and Heather and Joe for their strong support for the national 
defense of the United States. I am going to make sure that as the budget 
process goes on, that I will defend the priorities that I have submitted 
to Congress, primarily our national defense and homeland security, and 
make a clear case to Congress not to overspend, to show some fiscal 
discipline and some restraint, that we've got plenty of money to fund 
our priorities. We've just got to make sure we stay focused on the 
priorities.
    I also want you to know that there are a way for every one of us to 
help join in this war against terror to fight evil. And the way I like 
to put it is, go love a neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself; 
that if you want to fight evil, do some good; that if you want to show 
the killers that we're not going to be intimidated, feed the homeless, 
mentor a child, start a program, a faith-based program in your church or 
synagogue or mosque, all aimed at showing somebody who may have fallen 
to the depths of despair that somebody loves them, that there is a good 
and gracious God that loves them. And you

[[Page 709]]

can be a messenger, on behalf of the good and gracious God, to help 
somebody in need.
    And that's what's happening around America. This is a unique moment, 
because the character of our country is shining through. I mean, we're 
tough, but we're compassionate. We're strong, but we want to help the 
weak. And by doing so, the country is an amazing place for people who 
are fortunate enough to become an American. When people see our true 
character, they're amazed that we're a welcoming society. It doesn't 
matter how you were born or where you're raised; it doesn't matter if 
your mother or dad speaks Spanish and not English, because you're 
welcome in America. This country is available for you and your children.
    We need to show the world that when they hit us, they not only 
awakened our military and our strength and our resolve; they also 
awakened a deep and abiding compassion in our fellow human beings, who 
may not be as fortunate as we are.
    I want to thank you all, if you're doing that. If you're not, I call 
you to do it. I ask you, on behalf of the country, to redouble your 
efforts or to begin your efforts to help somebody who might hurt, to 
love somebody who needs love. And in so doing, you help strengthen 
America. You help us defeat an enemy that tried to change our country.
    It is such an honor to be the President of the greatest nation on 
the face of the Earth. I'm honored you came today, and I want to thank 
you for supporting a really fine soul, in Heather Wilson.

Note: The President spoke at 11:44 a.m. in the Pyramid Ballroom at the 
Crowne Plaza Pyramid Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Lt. Gov. 
Walter Bradley of New Mexico; and Representative Wilson's husband, Jay 
Hone. Representative Wilson is a candidate for reelection in New 
Mexico's First Congressional District.