This was not run when submitted to Newsday. A little over the top, but I do like the LBJ reference. ______________ Bush Should Take a Walk Near Home Jimmy Breslin October 24, 2002 As national defense begins at home, the sniper in the Washington suburbs was a threat from within. What, then, was George Bush doing in Atlanta, Daytona Beach, Fla., Rochester, Minn., Downingtown, Pa., Bangor, Maine, and other such places where he makes these cheap campaign tours? While in Washington a 13-year-old boy is shot while going into school and a 35-year-old father of two, a classic American working man, was killed committing the sin of going to work early. He made lunch sandwiches for his kids at home, then got to work early and was standing in the bus he drives at 5:45 a.m. and he is shot dead from somebody out in the darkness. And when in this nation did we ever close schools because of fear of an assassin, or have pupils locked inside their classrooms and allowed out of class only for the bathroom? This was not to be forgotten, ever, as the white van and white truck disappeared into the air last night to be replaced by the reality of the big old blue and burgundy 1990 Chevrolet with Jersey plates that police hunted last night. And the long late hours started with two people being sought. The man who was supposed to be directly in charge of the last three weeks was Bush's favorite, John "Prayer Book" Ashcroft, the attorney general. I think he goes to church to pray against people. Ashcroft could have had National Guard troops from two states, Maryland and Virginia, around schools. In New York, we had National Guard troopers on the streets at both the Williamsburg and Queensboro bridges. Putting them at schools is more like it. But Ashcroft was nowhere because the president was nowhere. Bush should have been taking a walk through Silver Spring or Rockville. That was his job. He pledged to defend the nation. He could have started by helping to repel the attack on Washington. A walk in Maryland. Make some tumult, with security everywhere, people milling, and the president of the country walking, walking, walking to show that fear must lose and the one causing the fear would be caught soon and put away forever. When John Kennedy was shot in 1963, Lyndon Johnson, succeeding him, was in the driveway outside the White House, falling in behind the hearse for the march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the requiem Mass. The Secret Service and people on his staff were against this. Too dangerous, they kept telling him. "I'd rather be shot than let anybody think I'm afraid to go out on that street," Johnson said. Somebody should have shown George Bush the words. It was one thing that Bush was completely disdainful of the World Trade Center. He and his people hate New York. He barely showed for a year. And they blew the attack. They blew it because any threats to New York weren't of such vital interest. New York is filled with blacks and Jews and all kinds of Hispanics and Asians who don't vote right. We don't bother with them during an election, then why stop everything and concentrate on some threat to the place? Now we find out that Bush doesn't even like Washington. The reason is that nobody in the shooting area, in Montgomery County towns, voted for him. His city was wounded and he went to Downingtown. He did it so openly that he immediately caused a memory of his father on a cold January day in 1992 trying to assure a public that regarded him as completely indifferent, which he sure was, to their being ground down by a diving economy. At the town hall in Exeter, N.H., Bush the elder had to say: "Message: I care."
I'm not sure what the hell to make of the end of the article (it almost sounds like the writer was drunk) but his point about Bush not being in D.C. during the sniper shootings is legitimate. Obviously, there's not much that Bush can do, but sometimes the best thing that a leader can do is be present. It's kind of like having the president of a company go on vacation during layoffs - it reeks of indifference.
It was one thing that Bush was completely disdainful of the World Trade Center. He and his people hate New York. He barely showed for a year. And they blew the attack. They blew it because any threats to New York weren't of such vital interest. New York is filled with blacks and Jews and all kinds of Hispanics and Asians who don't vote right. We don't bother with them during an election, then why stop everything and concentrate on some threat to the place? This is truly embarassing for Breslin. He is nothing more than a biased hack when he spews out this garbage.
