[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 44 (Monday, November 4, 2002)]
[Pages 1893-1898]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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.

[[Page 1894]]

    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 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.
    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

[[Page 1895]]

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 Nations 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 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

[[Page 1896]]

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.
    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.

[[Page 1897]]

    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. 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.

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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-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.