For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 31, 2002
Remarks by the President at Indiana Welcome
South Bend Regional Airport
South Bend, Indiana
2:10 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. I'm glad I came.
(Applause.) I'm glad I came back. (Applause.) The last time I was
here, the Fighting Irish were 1-0. (Applause.) This time, they're
8-0. (Applause.) Seems like you ought to keep inviting me back.
(Applause.) I know this for sure, the next time I come back, with your
help, Chris Chocola is going to be the next United States congressman.
(Applause.)
I'm traveling this country, and I can tell you, the American spirit
is alive and well. The spirit of people understanding that to be an
American means you've got to serve something greater than yourself.
The spirit of America says that we're willing to sacrifice for our
freedoms. And the spirit of America says that you take nothing in
democracy for granted. You see, if you're eligible to vote, you have
an obligation to vote. That's what the spirit of America calls for.
(Applause.)
You have an obligation to our country, you have an obligation to
democracy itself. So I'm here to -- in South Bend to urge
Republicans and Democrats and independents, people who don't care about
political parties, to do your duty, and to go to the polls; to assume
your responsibility as an American, and go to the polls. And by the
way, I've got a suggestion when you get in there, Chris Chocola is the
right man for the job. (Applause.)
I want to thank Congressman Steve Buyer for being here -- thanks
for coming, Steve -- I want to thank Mark Souder for coming -- two
of the fine Congressmen in the United States Congress for joining us.
I want to thank those who are running statewide, the candidates who are
up here with us who are out asking for your vote. I want to thank Todd
Rokita, running for secretary of state. I want to thank Connie Nass,
running for auditor. And I want to thank Tim Berry, who's running for
state treasurer. I want to thank them for their dedication to the
great state of Indiana, and I want to thank you for your service to
your community. (Applause.)
I want to say something about Sarah, the next congressman's wife.
(Applause.) I appreciate her taking on this task. I know something
about what it takes to put a family through a political process. It
requires a strong partner, somebody who believes in the country as much
as the candidate does. And I'm here to tell you Sarah Chocola is going
to be a great congressman's wife. (Applause.)
And speaking about great wives, Laura sends her love and she sends
her best. (Applause.) She's doing great. A lot of people in the
country now understand why I asked her to marry me. A lot of them are
still wondering why she said yes. (Laughter.) But she's learned she
makes a huge difference in the lives of our citizens. She cares deeply
about the capacity of every child in America to read. She is a
fabulous First Lady, and she is -- (applause).
I want to thank all the good folks here who are active in the
political process, you call grassroots activists. Those are the people
who are willing to put up the signs, the people willing to make the
phone calls, the people who can really determine the outcome of an
election. I want to thank you for what you have done, and I want to
thank you for what you're going to do Friday and Saturday and Sunday
and Monday, and that is find the good folks in this community who want
good government and get them to vote for Chris Chocola next Tuesday.
(Applause.)
You can make a difference in the campaign. You can actually
determine the outcome. So when you go to your houses of worship or
your coffee shops or your community centers, put out the word. And
remember there are some discerning Democrats who live up here, people
who know the difference between a shrill voice and a solid voice.
(Applause.) There are good independents up here, people who want
somebody to represent them who will bring honor and dignity to the
office. There are people who understand it makes sense to have
somebody who has been an entrepreneur serving in the United States
Congress, somebody who has actually met a payroll, somebody who knows
what it means to put people to work and to take risks. (Applause.)
So when you're putting out the word, don't just keep it narrowed to
just a few. Put out the good word that you've got a good man running
for the United States Congress. And if it helps, you tell them the
President wants him standing by his side in Washington, D.C., too.
(Applause.) I need somebody from this district whose vote I can count
on. I don't need to be worrying about somebody who's running a focus
group or a poll. I need a solid United States congressman up there,
who will support me in making America a stronger and safer and better
place for every citizen. (Applause.)
In order to make sure America is a better place, we need to do
something about our economy. We had some good news today. We had some
good news today. The third quarter was -- showed positive growth.
And that's positive. That's good news. We're making progress. But so
long as somebody's looking for work and can't find a job, says to me
we've got a problem. And I need people in the Congress who understand
how to create jobs. The role of government is not to create wealth;
the role of government is to create an environment in which the small
business can grow to be the big business, in which the entrepreneur can
flourish. (Applause.)
And part of creating that environment means to understand how the
tax code works. If you want your small businessperson to flourish, you
let them keep more of their own money. (Applause.) If 70 percent of
new jobs are created by small business owners, seems like it makes
sense to me, if you're worried about job creation, to let the small
business person have more money in their pocket, so they can reinvest,
so people can find work.
Here's what we believe. If you let a person have more of their own
money, they're likely to demand a good or a service. And when they
demand a good or a service in the marketplace, somebody is going to
produce the good or service. And when somebody produces the good or
service, somebody is more likely to find work. The tax relief plan we
passed happened at the right time. I need a congressman who will join
me in making the tax cuts permanent. (Applause.)
A good, strong America is an America that's got a good education
system. I appreciate Chris' vision on education. We share the same
vision. We want to have high standards for every child. We believe in
local control of schools. We're going to challenge the soft bigotry of
low expectations and we're going to hold people to account. See, if
you believe every child can learn like we do, then it makes sense to
start asking the fundamental question, can every child read and write
and add and subtract. And if so, I promise you we'll praise the
teachers. And for the teachers out there, thanks for what you do. But
you'd better have you a congressman who understands that when you find
children trapped in schools that won't teach and won't change, you've
got to challenge the status quo. No child should be left behind in the
state of Indiana. (Applause.)
Chris understands that we must keep our commitments, must keep our
commitments on Social Security, and must keep our commitments on
Medicare. See, medicine has changed, it's modern. Medicare isn't.
(Laughter.) Medicare -- medicine is, with new technologies and new
discoveries, is advancing. Medicare is stuck in the past. In order to
modernize Medicare -- I look forward to working with Chris to do so
-- and a modern Medicare system includes prescription drugs for every
senior. (Applause.)
No, there's a lot we can do together. But the most important job
we're going to have to do together is to make sure that our homeland is
protected, is to secure the homeland from further enemy attacks.
(Applause.) No, we'll work on the economy together and we'll work to
make sure every child is educated, we'll make sure the health care
system is relevant. There's a lot we can do. But our number one
priority will be to protect you, because there's an enemy out there
which hates America. They hate what we stand for. And we're not
changing what we stand for. we love freedom. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: USA, USA!
THE PRESIDENT: And we've got to be realistic about it. We've got
to be clear-eyed. We need somebody from this district who will be
realistic about the threats we face. See, we can't just hope for the
best in the new world we live in. We can't see the world the way we
would wish it would be. We've got to see the world the way it really
is. And it's a dangerous world. There's still an enemy that lurks out
there that -- they're killers. That's the only way I can describe
them. They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers. And so
we've got to do everything we can here at home to protect you.
And we are. There's a lot of good folks at the federal level and
the state level and the local level working hard -- listen, any time
-- we understand the stakes now, and any time somebody is thinking
about doing something to America, and somehow we're reading their
thoughts, or reading their mail, we're moving on them. We're
disrupting them. We're denying them. We absolutely refuse to let
these terrorists have their way. We're going to do everything we can
to shut down -- to shut down their capacity to hurt us.
And that's why I went to Congress and asked them to help -- join
me in creating a department of homeland security. It seemed like to me
that when you've got over 100 agencies in Washington, D.C. involved
with the homeland security, that you ought to focus their attention
with one agency so that we can set a clear priority, and if need be,
change cultures within these agencies so that the direction is clear
and the priorities are clear. And the United States House of
Representatives joined in my quest to have a department that would
function well, but it's stuck in the Senate. See, it got stuck in the
Senate before they went home to campaign. They couldn't get it out
because they were trying to extract too high a price from me. They
wanted me to give up a right that every President has had since John F.
Kennedy, the right and the capacity to suspend certain work rules in
the name of national security.
In other words, if the Senate had their way, I would have the
capacity to be able to -- I would have more flexibility with the
Department of Agriculture to deal with national security concerns than
I would with the new department of homeland security. Here we are at
war, and they want to take away the capacity for the President to be
able to better protect the American people. I need to be able to move
the right people to the right place at the right time to protect you,
and I'm not going to accept a lousy bill out of the United Nations
Senate. (Applause.)
I'm here to tell you the best way to protect America is to hunt the
killers down, one at a time, and bring them to justice. (Applause.)
And that's what we're going to do. That's what we're going to do. I
need somebody in Congress who is a cold-eyed realist, who understands
the stakes. Somebody who understands that history has called our
country into action. We've got to protect the future for our
children. And therefore, the best way to do that is to get on the
hunt, and not tire, stay steady and strong.
I went to the Congress and asked them to give me a good defense
bill, and fortunately, they did. It's the largest increase in defense
spending since Ronald Reagan was the President. There's two messages
in that bill. There's two messages I want to send to the world: One,
any time we put our troops into harm's way, they deserve the best pay,
the best training, and the best possible equipment. (Applause.) We
owe that to our troops, and we owe that to the loved ones of our
troops.
And by the way, for those of you who have got relatives in the
military, you can tell them this: I'm confident in their abilities;
I'm proud of their service; and we're going to use them to win the war
on terror. (Applause.)
And the second message that we delivered with the defense bill is
that we're in this deal for the long haul. See, there's not a calendar
on my desk in the Oval Office that says, by such and such a date we're
quitting. That's not America. When it comes to the defense of our
freedom, when it comes from doing our duty to future generations of
America, there is no quit in America. It doesn't matter how long it
takes, my fellow Americans, it doesn't matter what the cost, we will
defend the freedom of the United States of America. (Applause.)
And we're making progress. Sometimes it's hard to tell we're
making progress. Some of the old vets will tell you, in the old days,
you could measure progress by the number of tanks you destroyed, or the
number of enemy aircraft that were shot down out of the sky. This
bunch we're fighting, they don't have tanks. They're the kind who hide
in caves, kind of move around the dark corners of some of the cities in
the world, and then send youngsters to their suicidal deaths. That's
the kind of people they are.
See, there's a huge difference between us and them. They don't
value life; we value life. We say every life is precious, everybody
counts, everybody in the whole world has got worth. (Applause.) But
we're after them. It doesn't matter how dark the cave is, or what
corner of the world they're trying to hide in; we're after them, one at
a time. That's the way this war is going to be fought, and that's the
way it's going to be won.
We've got a lot of good folks working with us, because the doctrine
still stands, either you're with us, or you're with the enemy.
(Applause.) Slowly but surely, we're dismantling them. And it's going
to take a while, it just is going to take a while. We've probably
hauled in a couple of thousand of them; like number weren't as lucky.
In either case, these groups are not threats to us. The other day a
guy popped up, and he was going to be the 20th hijacker. He popped his
head up; he's not a problem to the United States of America. Slowly
but surely, we're hauling them in.
It's important to be realistic about the threats we face. It's
important to understand it's a dangerous world. It's also important to
understand the stakes have changed since September the 11th. When I
was a youngster -- kind of when I was an older guy, too -- we
thought oceans could protect us. That's what we thought. If there was
a conflict or a threat to overseas, we had the luxury, because of two
great oceans, to pick and choose our fights. If we wanted to help, we
would; if it was a direct threat, we could decide -- if there was an
indirect threat, we could decide to get involved, not -- but oceans
protected us.
That's changed. And America must understand that has changed. And
therefore, threats that, in the past, may not have seemed overly
significant all of a sudden become significant, like the threat to
America in Iraq. Saddam Hussein is a threat to our country. He can't
stand what we believe in. He doesn't like America; he doesn't like our
friends. He's a man who told the world he would have no weapons of
mass destruction, and yet, he does. And not only that, he's used
weapons of mass destruction. He's used them against his neighbors, and
he's used them against his own people.
For 11 years, he's deceived and denied the world, and he's a
threat. He's a threat. If he were to team up, like we think he's
trying to do, with one of these terrorist networks, he would be able to
use a weapon of mass destruction on America and leave no fingerprints
behind. We've got to be clear-eyed about our responsibilities and the
threats we face.
So I went to the United Nations. See, I hope that body can be
effective to deal with the new threats that we face, that
freedom-loving people face. I told them that for 16 resolutions this
guy has ignored you, and we want you to be successful. We want you to
be able to keep the peace, so do something about it. We also sent the
message to Saddam Hussein -- I'm saying it again right now -- you
said you wouldn't have weapons of mass destruction; disarm. Do what
you said you would do.
But if the United States won't act, won't fulfill their
responsibilities to keep the peace, and if Saddam Hussein will not
disarm -- their choices, by the way -- the United States of America,
in the name of peace and in the name of freedom, will lead a coalition
and disarm Saddam Hussein. (Applause.)
And I believe, by remaining strong and tough and firm, that we can
achieve peace. You've just got to know, amongst all the talk about
getting them and war and all that, that my vision is for a peaceful
world. And I believe we can achieve it; I do. It requires this
country to be steady and resolved. It requires us to remember that
freedom isn't an American gift, it's God-given. It's got to remember
the values that we hold dear of being steady and resolved.
The evil done to America, the evil done to this country is going to
yield some incredible good, I believe. Not only abroad can we achieve
peace, I mean in parts of the world where they've quit on peace.
Remember, we believe everybody has worth, everybody counts, everybody
matters. We want children to grow up in a peaceful world.
That's why, when we went into Afghanistan, we went in not as
conquerors, but as liberators. And thanks to the United States of
America, many young girls now go to school for the first time. Those
values we hold dear are important values. (Applause.) Everybody
counts.
And here at home we can have a better America, as well. See, while
we worked for our security and safety, we can also work to make sure
this country is a better place for everybody. There are pockets of
despair in America. Amongst our plenty, people hurt, people are
lonely, people need help. And the role of government is a limited
role. We can hand out money, which we do -- sometimes we're pretty
good at it. We can repair systems when they're broken. But what
government cannot do is put hope in people's hearts, or a sense of
purpose in people's lives. That happens when a fellow American puts
their arm around somebody in need and says, I love you, I love you.
You know, I don't know what was going through the enemy's mind when
they hit us. They probably thought that the national religion was
materialism; that we were so self-absorbed and selfish, that after
9/11, we'd take a step back and maybe file a lawsuit or two. They just
didn't understand. They didn't understand our strength, our resolve,
that when it comes to freedom, we're plenty strong. But when it comes
to compassion, we're really decent people. (Applause.)
No, I believe out of the evil done to America can come a country in
which the American Dream is known to everybody who lives here; in which
people who hurt can find salvation and hope. Today I had the honor of
meeting Dick McCloskey. He's a man who lost a daughter on 9/11 in New
York. He's a man, and along with his family, has dedicated himself to
work at the Center for the Homeless. He's a guy who knows what I know,
that we can change America, one heart, one soul at a time; and that
each of us has a responsibility -- each of us has a responsibility as
an American to help people in need.
The American spirit is more than just keeping the peace and
defending the homeland. The American spirit was embodied on Flight 93,
that day when people were flying across the country. They heard the
plane was going to be a weapon; they told their loved ones good-bye.
They said a prayer. A guy said, "Let's roll." They drove the plane in
the ground, to serve something greater than themselves in life.
(Applause.)
That's the American spirit, serving something greater than
yourself. No, the enemy had no idea; when they attacked us, they
attacked the greatest nation, full of the finest people on the face of
this Earth.
Thank you for your concern about our country. Thank you for
supporting Chris. May God bless you, and may God bless America.
(Applause.)
END 2:40 P.M. EST
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