[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 36 (Monday, September 9, 2002)]
[Pages 1494-1499]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Luncheon for Representative Anne M. Northup
 in Louisville

September 5, 2002

    I want to thank you all. Thanks for coming. I'm really honored to 
have been invited back to Louisville by Anne to help in her reelection 
effort. She is a incredibly--she is a breath of fresh air in Washington, 
let me put it to you that way. She's honest. She's open. The thing I 
love about Anne is her heart. It is as big as Texas. [Laughter] She 
cares deeply about her fellow citizens.
    You see, what we need in the political process is people who put the 
people ahead of partisanship. They put people's concerns and hopes and 
aspirations ahead of personal success--their own personal success.
    See, I love the idea that this is a soul who is willing to work in 
neighborhoods where somebody might not have ever voted for her. She's 
not the kind of citizen who said, ``Did you vote for me,'' and 
therefore, ``I'm going to help you.'' She's the kind of citizen who 
says, ``I'm honored to be in the position I'm in, and what can I do to 
make Kentucky, and Louisville, Kentucky, as hopeful a place for every 
citizen?'' Anne Northup deserves to be reelected to the United States 
Congress.
    I value her advice. I value her friendship. I value being able to 
work with her to do what's right for America. I also like the fact that 
she loves her family. She's got her priorities straight. She loves 
Woody, and she loves her kids. I love the fact that Anne is an adopted 
mom. It shows something special about her heart and her willingness to 
love. I enjoyed meeting her mother and dad. She probably listens to her 
mother about as much as I do--listen to mine. [Laughter] But she is--
she's got her priorities straight, her faith and her family and the 
people of Louisville, Kentucky.
    So I want to thank you all for coming to help this good lady. I want 
to thank you for contributing, and I urge you to contribute your time. 
It's--this fundraiser is going to be history in about 30 minutes, or if 
I keep

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it shorter than that, about 20 minutes. But now you've got more work to 
do. And for those of you who are the grassroot activists here in this 
community, for those of you who help lead our party, I want to thank you 
for what you have done; I want to thank you for what you are going to 
do. You need to go to your coffee shops, churches, and community centers 
and synagogues and pass the word that when you've got a good soul like 
Anne Northup, citizens need to go out and support her. So, thanks for 
helping her, and thanks for coming.
    I also want to thank a member of my Cabinet, Elaine Chao, for being 
here. I appreciate her leadership. She's doing a fantastic job, and I'm 
sure she would like me to mention the fact that she married old Mitch. 
[Laughter] And when you're remembering Anne, don't forget Mitch. He's a 
good--he's a great United States Senator. We need Mitch McConnell back 
in the Senate. He's doing a really, really good job for the State of 
Kentucky. I value his advice as well.
    And we were just traveling today from Washington to here earlier 
with another fine United States Senator, and that's, of course, Jim 
Bunning. And I appreciate his leadership and his support. I want to 
thank Ellen Williams. I want to thank State Senate President David 
Williams. I want to thank the members of the statehouse who are here. I 
appreciate the fact that Geoff Davis, candidate for the U.S. Kentucky 
fourth district, is with us. And Geoff, I appreciate you putting your 
hat in the ring.
    I appreciate all my fellow citizens. We've got some issues we've got 
to confront here in America, and I want to share some of them with you. 
A lot of these issues are going to require having the steady hand of 
Anne Northup in the Congress.
    My job is to make America secure, to strengthen the country, and 
make it a better place. And starting with making America a better place 
means we better make sure every child is educated. I don't mean a 
handful or some in the suburban districts. Every child--I mean every 
child in America must be educated in order for America to be a better 
place. And I want to tell you how--what an influence Anne Northup had in 
a significant piece of legislation that we passed. It's called the no 
child left behind legislation.
    That bill means what it says: No child, not one child in America 
left behind. The philosophy of the bill should speak volumes to the 
people of this district about Anne's mentality. It first starts with 
understanding that every child can learn. You see, it challenges low 
expectations or the soft bigotry of low expectations. When you lower the 
bar, when you expect mediocrity, you tend to get mediocrity. And that's 
not good enough for our children.
    No, this bill says every child can learn. It also says the people 
who care more about the children in Louisville, Kentucky, are the 
citizens of Louisville, Kentucky. We believe strongly in local control 
of schools. We expect the local people to chart the path to excellence 
for every child--every child--who lives here in Louisville, Kentucky.
    But inherent in this bill are two other features that I want to 
explain to you. One that says, if you believe every child can learn--
therefore you want to know if every child is learning. And therefore, in 
return for a lot of Federal money, we expect every school district in 
America to teach our children how to read and write and add and 
subtract. And so we measure. We want to know. We expect there to be 
accountability. We're willing to ask the question, ``Have you 
succeeded?'' And we're also willing to say, ``If you haven't, we expect 
to see something different.'' We don't want our children trapped in 
schools--we won't be satisfied if our children are trapped in schools 
that won't teach and won't change.
    But Anne's biggest contribution--and I mean, a significant 
contribution--was to fight for and get funding for a Reading First 
initiative. It is a Federal initiative that recognizes all this talk 
about structuring our schools, all the talk about making sure the public 
education system is reformed doesn't matter a whit if our children can't 
read. And so, Anne, working with some of the best experts in the 
country, calling together the best minds, put in this bill a significant 
reading program, one that's not only funded for a billion dollars but 
one that recognizes reading is a science, not an art. We know what 
works, and we expect the curriculum around

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America to be in place that teaches every child how to read.
    We've got work to do in our economy. There are some people in our 
country that can't find work, and they want to work, and that means 
we've got a problem. The foundations for growth are good. Inflation is 
down. Interest rates are down. Listen, we're the most productive workers 
in the world. We're really good at what we do in a lot of places. And 
even though there are some progress, I'm not satisfied. And one of the 
things I appreciate about Anne is that when we need to let people have 
more of their own money, to make sure that the economy didn't completely 
crater--and a matter of fact, to make sure that the growth started--that 
she joined me in fighting for tax cuts for the American people.
    And we need her back up there, because there are some in Washington, 
DC, who want to take those tax relief plans away, see? There are some 
who can't stand the thought of letting the people have their money. They 
get confused about whose money we're talking about. We're not talking 
about the Government's money. We're talking about the people's money. 
And the best way to make sure there are jobs available for people who 
work is to understand, if you let a person keep more of their own money, 
they're likely to demand a good or a service. And when they demand a 
good or a service, somebody is likely to produce a good or a service. 
And when somebody produces a good or a service, somebody is more likely 
to find work.
    We need to make the tax cuts permanent. We need to make the repeal 
of the death tax permanent. And Anne understands that. She understands 
that. That's the kind of mentality we need in Washington.
    Washington is a tough and ugly town at times. We saw that today in 
the United States Senate. I named a really, really fine woman from Texas 
to one of the appellate benches. This woman was ranked highly qualified 
by the American Bar Association. She ran statewide in my State of Texas 
and got over 80 percent of the vote. She's highly respected by 
Republicans and Democrats. And I named her to a higher bench. And today 
her nomination was rejected by the United States Senate. A handful of 
Senators distorted her record. A handful of Senators, acting out of pure 
politics, did not let this good woman's name go forward. The United 
States Senate must act in better stead. This is a--treating a fine woman 
this way is bad for the country; it's bad for our bench. And I don't 
appreciate it one bit, and neither do the American people.
    I also appreciate the fact that Anne understands that the stakes are 
high for our future, that our country has entered into a new era, that 
our homeland is a battlefield, and that our most important job as a 
Government is to protect the American people, is to do everything in our 
power to keep America safe, is to prevent the enemy from hitting us 
again. The enemy is still out there. They're people who just hate 
America; you know, they just do. They hate us because we love--we love 
freedom. We love our values. We love the fact that our citizens can 
worship an almighty God freely in America. That's what we love. We 
love--we love free speech. We love a free press. We love all aspects of 
our freedom. And the more we love our freedom, the more they hate us.
    And you've got to understand something about these people. They do 
not value life. In America, every life matters. Every life is important. 
Every individual counts. The enemy is willing to take innocent life 
because they hate, and they have no compunction in doing so. These 
people are people who have hijacked a great religion, distorted its 
tenets, and they're still out there. And so, therefore, we've got to do 
a lot here in America to protect our country.
    And we're making good progress; we really are. There's a lot of 
really fine people that are communicating like they've never 
communicated before, that are sharing information. See, now that we're 
on alert, now that we know they're there, we're much better about 
responding. We've got people at all levels of government working 
overtime to chase down any lead, to make sure that any hint that 
somebody might do something to us is followed up on.
    And that's why I went to Congress, by the way, because this is our 
priority, to get them to give us a new type of arrangement about how to 
deal with the new threat of the 21st century. Listen, I promise you I 
didn't run--

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or you know I didn't run on, ``Vote for me. I want Government to be 
bigger.'' [Laughter] I ran on, ``Vote for me. I'll try to make it work 
better when it's supposed to work.'' And one way to make it work better 
is to collect the agencies involved with the homeland security and put 
them under one Department of Homeland Security, so that we can make the 
number one priority of the people that are working hard in these 
agencies the protection of the homeland, so that we can do a better job 
of protecting our borders.
    We've got three agencies on our borders, INS and Customs and Border 
Patrol, and they've got different cultures and different strategies. And 
they ought to be working seamlessly, to find out who's coming in our 
country, what they're bringing in our country, and whether they're 
leaving the country when they say they're going to be leaving the 
country.
    And yet, if the Senate bill goes through on homeland defense, I 
won't have the capacity to move the right people in the right place at 
the right time in order to protect our homeland. We won't have the 
capacity to make this part of the homeland security work seamlessly. I 
am not going to accept a bill where the Senate micromanages, where the 
Senate shows they're more interested in special interest in Washington 
and not interested in the security of the American people.
    But the surest way to secure the homeland, the only way to fully 
secure our homeland, is to chase the killers down, one person at a time, 
and bring them to justice. And that's what we're going to do. They hide 
in caves and send young kids to their suicidal death. They don't have 
formations and flotillas. They're resourceful killers, is what they are. 
And so they're kind of slithering around, hiding, and trying to find a 
dark corner to get in. And we're shining the light on them.
    It's going to take a while, see? This isn't something that's going 
to end anytime soon. In order to secure freedom we must keep them 
moving, keep disrupting. And that's why I have submitted a defense bill 
to the Congress which is the biggest increase in defense spending since 
Ronald Reagan was the President, because I understand that this isn't 
going to be a short-term operation. I want to send the signal to our 
friends and allies that we're not quitting anytime soon. I want to send 
the signal to our enemy that you have aroused a compassionate and decent 
and mighty nation, and we're going to hunt you down.
    I also asked for the increase because any time we send our troops 
into harm's way, they deserve the best pay, the best training, and the 
best possible equipment.
    The House passed a defense bill, and the Senate passed a defense 
bill. But since they're different, they've got to get together and 
reconcile. And so they need to start meeting today. You see, a lot of 
times in Washington they like to play politics with the defense bill. 
They like to hold it up. But I want to remind those who think they can 
play politics with the defense bill, the American people aren't going to 
stand for it in a time of war. They need to get the defense bill to my 
desk as soon as possible, so I can sign it.
    And we're making good progress on our war. Sometimes you'll know it, 
and sometimes you won't. Remember, this is a different kind of war. 
We're having to adjust to the fact that sometimes we'll catch one of 
these killers, and everybody will know about it. And sometimes you just 
won't know about it. [Laughter] That's just the way it is.
    Anne was right, we are enforcing the doctrines, however. We're 
enforcing the doctrines of this first war of the 21st century. One of 
the doctrines is, if you harbor one of these people you're just as 
guilty as they are. If you feed a terrorist, harbor a terrorist, hide a 
terrorist, you're just as guilty as those who murdered thousands of 
innocent citizens on September the 11th. And the Taliban found out what 
we meant. See, it's important in the world, when you say something, that 
you do it.
    But what was important about that action was not only did we uphold 
doctrine, but more importantly, we liberated a country. I want you to 
tell your kids, if they start questioning about the motives of the 
United States of America, if they start to get concerned about war--and 
I can understand why they would--you can remind them that this great 
country went into Afghanistan not to conquer anybody but to liberate 
people. And thanks to this Nation, and our friends

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and allies, many young girls go to school for the first time in 
Afghanistan.
    That's the way we think as a nation. We think about peace for our 
children and other people's children, and we think about liberating 
people, because every life matters to us, see. Everybody counts. When I 
say every life matters, I'm not talking about just American lives. I 
mean every life around the globe. We believe in the value of human life 
here in America. That's what we hold--we hold that dear to our hearts.
    I also laid out a doctrine that says, either you're with us or with 
the enemy--either with us or with them. And a lot of times the actions 
that you're reading about are taking place because of friends and 
allies. I'll give you one example. Gloria Arroyo, the President of the 
Philippines, hauled in this guy--or actually, brought the guy to justice 
who was running the Abu Sayyaf * group which was a group of Al-Qaida-
type killers that had kidnapped two Americans called the Burnhams and 
were holding them hostage. They didn't care about their lives. One guy, 
the dad, lost his life. But slowly but surely--my point to you is that 
this coalition of nations, which care for freedom and understand the 
stakes, are making good progress. We're hauling them in--sometimes 
they're not as lucky as that--but we're after them, one by one. And 
we're going to stay after them, one by one, until we win.
    * White House correction.
    There are other challenges facing us. See, my job is to not only 
chase down those who have hit but to anticipate. We're a battleground. 
We've never been a battleground before, therefore, the stakes have 
changed. See, if you're not a battleground, if you don't have to worry 
about your people getting attacked because of vast oceans protecting 
you, then you can think one way. But September the 11th changed thought 
here in America. It should, because now we realize the enemy is willing 
to take the battle here. And they're resourceful.
    One of my jobs is to think ahead and to think--is to cause debate, 
and I started that yesterday, to encourage the American people to listen 
to and have a dialog about Iraq. And I meant it when I said that I'm 
going to consult with Congress. I want there to be an open discussion 
about the threats that face America. Tomorrow I'm calling leaders in 
Russia, China, and France to talk about the threats that face us all. I 
will see Tony Blair on Saturday. I will see Jean Chretien Monday. My 
point to you is, not only will I consult with Congress and talk to 
Congress--my administration and I will do so--I will also see many of 
the leaders of the world and remind them of the facts. The facts are, 
this is a man who gassed his own people, he's invaded two countries, a 
person who stiffed the international organization time and time again.
    I look forward to the debate. I look forward to the American people 
understanding the threats we face. But one thing is for certain, I'm not 
going to change my view, and it's this--and my view is, we cannot let 
the world's worst leaders blackmail America, threaten America, or hurt 
America with the world's worst weapons.
    I believe--I believe--I believe that good is going to come out of 
the evil done to America, because I know America. I know the strength of 
our country. I truly believe that we have an opportunity to achieve 
peace. These killers hit us, and in their hatred they have given us a 
chance to achieve peace. If we're tough and strong, if we stay focused 
on how to achieve peace, if we remind the world in clear terms the 
difference between good and evil and speak clearly about the two, we can 
achieve peace. We can achieve peace not only for America, we can achieve 
peace for the people of Israel and Palestinians. We can achieve peace. I 
believe it. I believe we can achieve peace in South Asia. No, this 
enemy, these killers hit America. They, in so doing, created an 
opportunity to achieve peace.
    They hit us at home, and out of that evil will come some incredible 
good. America is a compassionate country. The irony of the attacks--the 
irony of the attacks is that America became a more compassionate place. 
In the face of the evil, thousands of our citizens understood that in 
order to fight evil they needed to do so by doing some good, that you 
can fight evil by loving your neighbor just like you'd like to be loved 
yourselves, that it's the gathering momentum of

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millions of acts of kindness and compassion which define the true 
character of America.
    And that's happening. You see, the definition of patriotism has 
changed in America for the better. A patriot is not only somebody who 
puts their hand on their heart. A patriot is somebody who helps somebody 
in need. A patriot is somebody who mentors a child. A patriot is 
somebody who goes to their church or synagogue and mosques and organizes 
a way to feed those who hunger or house those who need shelter. A 
patriot is somebody who goes to a shut-in and says, ``I love you.'' A 
patriot is somebody who knows that somebody can't do everything, but 
somebody can do something to help America change one heart, one soul, 
one conscience at a time.
    And that's happening. No, out of the evil done to America is coming 
a new culture, a culture which says each of us are responsible for the 
decisions we make, a culture which stands in stark contrast to, when I 
first got into politics, when it said, ``If it feels good, just go ahead 
and do it here in America, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody 
else.'' No, there's a new day here in this country. It's a day in which 
we understand that there's addiction and hopelessness and despair and 
that Government can hand out money--and we do a pretty good job of it--
but what Government can't do is change people's hearts or put a sense of 
purpose in people's life. That's done when loving, decent, kind 
Americans hug a neighbor in need.
    So the enemy hit us, and instead of retreating, instead of filing--
only filing a lawsuit, we decided not only to get after them, we decided 
not only to hold them to account, we decided that we're going to love 
our neighbor, just like we like to be loved ourself. And America will be 
a better country for it.
    On September the 11th, we'll mourn the loss of life. We'll remember 
what happened to us. And at the same time, I hope our country doubles 
our effort to make this land the greatest land on the face of the Earth, 
a hopeful place for every citizen who's fortunate enough to be a 
citizen.
    Thank you for coming. God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 1:05 p.m. in the Medallion Ballroom at the 
Seelbach Hilton Louisville. In his remarks, he referred to 
Representative Northup's husband, Robert Wood ``Woody'' Northup; Ellen 
C. Williams, chairman, Republican Party of Kentucky; Texas Supreme Court 
Justice Priscilla Owen, nominee to be U.S. Circuit Court Judge for the 
Fifth District; President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines; 
Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom; and Prime Minister Jean 
Chretien of Canada.