For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 24, 2002
Remarks by the President at Simon for Governor Breakfast
Regency Club
Santa Monica, California
7:45 A.M. PDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Please. Thanks for that warm
welcome, and good morning. It's great to be here. I'm -- had a great
stay here in California. Went to Stockton, and then Dana Point, and
finishing off our visit here in the Los Angeles area. I'm off to New
Mexico, and after I spend the afternoon in New Mexico, I'll be back in
Crawford, Texas, where I'll tell the First Lady of your thanks.
By the way, she's doing a fabulous job. She is a really remarkable
woman. She is a -- (applause.) When the nation needed a calm,
reassuring voice, she provided it. And when I need someone to kind of
calm me down, she does. I'm real proud of Laura. She was born and
raised in Midland, Texas. She was a public school librarian. She
didn't care for politics, she didn't like politicians, and now she a
great First Lady of the United States. (Laughter.)
I also thank Cindy Simon for being a good, strong mom and great
wife and future first lady of the state of California. (Applause.) I
appreciate David Murdock for his hospitality. And I want to thank you
all for coming. I want to thank you for supporting this good man in
his quest to be the governor of this important state.
I stand by his side because I know that you can do better in
California, that the status quo is not acceptable; that what Sacramento
needs is a breath of fresh air, a new way of thinking, a new attitude
about politics. That attitude starts with understanding the job of the
governor is to serve everybody. It's not to pit one group of people
against another. It's not to take into account of who is for you and
who is against you, and therefore make decisions based upon that. You
need a governor who makes decisions based upon principle, not polls; a
governor who understands that setting priorities is important.
You see, you can't balance the budget unless you set priorities.
You can't be all things to all people in the political process. You
need a governor who is willing to make tough decisions. And I know
Bill Simon is that kind of person. See, he doesn't need a poll or a
focus group to tell him what to think. You've either got it inside
your soul, or you don't. And this man's priorities are strong -- his
faith in his family and his desire to serve his community. And those
are important values for somebody who wants to lead the state of
California. (Applause.)
And what I appreciate most of all is his compassion for education.
I share the same passion. Education -- good education policy starts
with a frame of mind that says every child can learn. That sounds
simple, of course, but that's not the way it is in a lot of school
districts. You see, it's a -- and I learned this lesson as the
governor of the state of Texas, when I traveled around my own state. I
went to places where it became apparent to me that people thought some
children couldn't learn; generally kids whose parents didn't speak
English as a first language, the newly arrived, or the inner-city
African American child. You know, it's easy to walk into a classroom
and just assume these kids can't learn. Let's just move them through,
see. Let's just get them out of the system. Those days have got to
end, and Bill understands that. If you want a hopeful California for
everybody, you must start with an education system that starts with
high expectations. In other words, you've got to challenge what
I call the soft bigotry of low expectations. (Applause.)
There are two crucial ingredients to doing that -- one is recognize
there are a variety of paths to excellence. In other words, one size
doesn't fit all when it comes to schools; that you've got to trust the
local folks, the parents and the teachers and the principals, to design
the path to excellence. That's really important out of Washington,
D.C. I mean, one of the really good parts of the No Child Left Behind
legislation was that we divested Washington of power. And Bill
understands you've got to do the same thing in Sacramento. You cannot
micromanage your way to excellence in education.
And another cornerstone of excellence is to measure, is to be
willing to take on the status quo by measuring. See, if you believe
every child can learn, then you want to know if every child is
learning. And the only way you do that is you devise accountability
systems, accountability systems designed to let us all know the truth.
And if children are learning, it gives us an opportunity to praise the
teachers and the principals and the curriculum that's used. But you
see, an accountability system also will show which children aren't
learning. And then that becomes an opportunity to correct problems
early, before it's too late. Every child matters in California, and no
-- not one single child -- should be left behind. (Applause.)
And Bill understands that. And I appreciate his vision and his
care. I also appreciate his understanding that the great strength of
this country is not in our governments, but in the hearts and souls of
our people, and that any of us in positions of responsibility must be
willing to challenge and rally the great armies of compassion which
exist all across the country. These armies of compassion can be found
in church, synagogue or mosque; they can be found in the Boys and Girls
Clubs; they're found in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts; they're found
in the bosoms of our fellow citizens -- and that, while government can
hand out money, what it cannot do is put hope in people's hearts or a
sense of purpose in people's lives. And the job of government is not
to discriminate against faith-based and charitable programs, but to
welcome them to make the society a better place for all. (Applause.)
So I appreciate his vision. I appreciate his attitude. And I
appreciate the fact that with your help he's going to be the next
governor of the state of California. (Applause.)
Before I leave I do want to give you an update about the issues we
face on a national basis. First, our economy is -- has had some tough
times. We inherited a recession -- the first three quarters of my
presidency were negative growth. That means it's a recession. The
positive news is the next three quarters have been positive growth.
Inflation is low, interest rates are low, productivity is up. We've
got the best workers in the world, we've got the most innovative
entrepreneurs in the world. Things are clicking along.
Obviously, we're recovering from the attacks. We're making
progress. The tax cuts that we passed were incredibly important,
incredibly important to our economy. And one of the things Congress
needs to do is make them permanent. In order for entrepreneurs to
plan, they have got to make the tax cuts permanent. (Applause.) We're
making progress, but we're not going to rest. You've got to
understand, though, I understand the role of government is not to
create wealth. That's not the role of government. The role of
government is to create an environment in which businesses, small,
large, and entrepreneurs can flourish. And that's the kind of work
we'll continue to do until anybody who wants to find a job can find
one. That's my concern. (Applause.)
The economy is on my mind, and so is the defense of our homeland.
And it would be on your mind, too, if you saw what I saw on a daily
basis, which is a continued threat to our country. And we take every
threat seriously. I had the opportunity of meeting one of our finest,
an FBI agent who is here today, and you just need to know that whether
it be the FBI or other intelligence-gathering networks, agencies in the
United States, or state or local officials, we're all working overtime
to protect the American people.
We've got a new task at hand, we're in a new era. The first war of
the 21st century is taking place, and we must respond at home in an
intelligent and smart way. That means sharing intelligence; that means
running down every hint, that means chasing every single lead. And
that's exactly what we will continue to do.
It also means that we've got to reorganize our government in a
smart way. I gave -- I'm sure you've heard by now that I've asked the
Congress to reorganize the agencies involved with homeland defense so
that there's one bureaucracy, one agency. When I first got going,
people said, well, gosh, it doesn't seem to make sense. I said -- I
assured him, I wasn't running, you know, vote for me, I want government
to be bigger. That wasn't my slogan. (Laughter.) But now that we're
in this new war, I'd like it to work better, so I can assure the
American people that we're doing everything we can to fulfill our
number one priority, which is to protect innocent life here at home.
And so we've asked the government to respond. The House has. The
Senate is kind of caught up in -- not kind of, really caught up in
their own special interests. They kind of want to micromanage. They
want to tell the administration branch you can't move this person here
or there without a permission slip. We need flexibility. We need the
ability to move people around. We need the ability to better protect
our borders. We need the ability to make sure our first responders are
better trained.
And so I think we're going to get a good bill, but not unless the
Senate lets us move people -- the right people to the right place at
the right time. And I need this agency. I need it so I can assure the
American people that at home we're doing everything we can.
And we are. But the best way to make sure that we secure the
homeland and protect and defend our freedoms is to hunt these killers
down, one person at a time. That's what we have to do, and that's
exactly what we are going to do. We're going to do so because we love
freedom. One of the challenges I knew I would have, that the farther
we got away from September the 11th, the more likely it would be people
would forget -- would forget the challenge, would not remember the pain
and suffering. We kind of think that the enemy might have forgotten
their ideology, now that they struck, would just kind of go away.
That's not reality, see. That's not the way the world is today.
These people are haters, they're cold-blooded killers. They can't
stand the thought that we worship freely. They do not like the thought
that we value each life. And so the only way to deal with them is to
use every resource at our disposal, and to bring them to justice.
Now, you notice I said bring them to justice. I didn't say, seek
revenge. We're not a revengeful nation. We believe in justice. I
also want to assure you all -- I particularly want you to assure your
children -- that when the United States moves, when we uphold doctrine
-- like the doctrine that says, if you harbor one of them, you're just
as guilty as they are -- that doctrine -- that when we made our
decision against the Taliban and moved against the Taliban, we did so
not to conquer anybody. America doesn't conquer people. We went in as
liberators, because not only do we value life here at home, that
everybody matters, we feel the same way about lives around the world.
We don't like it when barbaric regimes such as the Taliban deny
young girls the opportunity to go to school. See, that's not in our
grain. We don't think that is the right way. And in this case, not
only were we able to uphold a doctrine, but by the use of force to
uphold that doctrine, we also liberated young girls and liberated women
and liberated men from the clutches of a terrible regime. (Applause.)
We've got a lot of work ahead of us. Obviously, one of the jobs is
to continue to work on keeping our coalition together. That part of
the doctrine said, either you're with us or you're with them. And most
people have chosen to be with us, because they understand that we do
believe in freedom, and we're motivated by positive values -- not
American values, by the way, but universal, God-given values. Those
are the values we hold dear.
We've got to continue to work to gather intelligence around the
world and share it, so that we can haul them in. And we, being the
coalition, have done a pretty good job of arresting or incarcerating,
however you want to call it, over a couple of thousand of al Qaeda
killers. So one by one we're finding them, and another -- about the
equal number haven't been quite as lucky, as a result of the war in
Afghanistan.
But we're making progress. But you need to know there are still
some of them out there. How many, we don't know. They haven't all
raised their hand. This is a different kind of war. (Laughter.) This
isn't one of these wars where you measure an enemy's strength by the
number of tanks or the number of airplanes or the number of ships.
This is a -- it's hard to count an enemy which -- the leadership of
which hides in caves and sends young boys to their death. That's the
nature.
But this country is strong, see. They didn't know who they were
hitting. I like to tease them by saying, they must have thought all we
were going to do is file a lawsuit. (Laughter.) They didn't
understand America. They didn't understand the fact that we do love
things. We love freedom. We love each other. We cry when somebody
gets hurt, like what happened on September the 11th. We mourn the loss
of any time anyone of our brave soldiers is killed in combat. We care
deeply about our fellow citizens. And so, therefore, when they struck
us, they struck a chord.
It's not only a patriotic chord of love of country, it's a chord of
service, is what it is. You probably have heard me say this, but I
truly believe it, that this is an opportunity -- out of evil will come
some good. That's what I believe. And the good that will come will be
peace. If we remain strong and tough, and take on some of the tough
tasks that we're going to have to take on, we can achieve peace -- not
only peace for the short-run, but more importantly, peace for future
generations. Not only peace for our fellow Americans, but peace for
the Israelis and the Palestinians, peace in South Asia. That is the
dream. We have an opportunity, we have an opportunity. I see a world
that is peaceful. (Applause.)
Well, sometimes we're going to have to be tough, and have to speak
clearly about the difference between good and evil. We can't
equivocate. We must speak about universal values. We must be strong
in principle. But we can get there.
And at home, at home we can be a more compassionate America. I
first got into politics -- when I first got into politics -- actually,
when I first got into politics I lost, in 1978. (Laughter.) The
second time I got into politics -- (laughter) -- when I was running for
governor, I told the people of my state, one of the reasons I was
running was to help be a part of a cultural change -- from a culture
that said, if it feels good, just go ahead and do it, and if you've got
a problem, blame somebody else. That's how I tried to define the
culture in a way people could understand. My dream was to be a part of
a shift toward a culture which says each of us are responsible for the
decisions we make in life; that there needs to be a period of personal
responsibility in America.
It's amazing how life works, and I like to use Flight 93 as an
example -- the culture is shifting, it's shifting after 9/11. The
enemy has awakened a spirit in America that says, part of a culture
based upon personal responsibility is to serve something greater than
yourself in life, starting with serving your children as loyal moms and
dads.
Flight 93 was an example of that. It was a vivid, sad, tragic
example, but nevertheless, it's one that will serve to me, and I think
many Americans, as a reminder about what I'm talking about. These are
people that were on an airplane, they learned the airplane was going to
be a weapon. They got on their cell phones, they told their loved ones
they loved them -- they used the word, "love." They said a prayer, and
they drove the plane in the ground, to serve something greater than
themselves in life.
It's an example, a vivid example of what I'm talking about. You
see, when you mentor a child, you're serving something greater than
yourself in life. When you love a shut-in; when you teach a child
values by being a Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop leader; when you say to
a person who wonders about their future that, I love you, can I help
you -- these acts of compassion and kindness and decency are all part
about being an American. A patriotic American who understands there is
a responsibility to something greater than self.
No, out of the evil done to America is going to come a more
compassionate and decent America. When one of us hurts, all of us
hurts. And we can change America one person, one conscience, one soul
at a time. We can. We can all make a difference. (Applause.)
I hope you can tell that I'm an optimistic fellow, and I'm
optimistic -- and rightly so -- because I'm the President of the
greatest nation on the face of the Earth, full of the most decent and
compassionate people. (Applause.) Thank you for helping Bill. May
God bless you, and may God bless America. (Applause.)
END 9:05 A.M. PDT
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