WASHINGTON, 6 July — The president of the American Muslim Council is seeking to meet with President George Bush to discuss his concerns about the “unexpected removal” of a Muslim student from a White House meeting last week.
“We have much faith in the fairness and unbiased attitude of Bush, and we seek this meeting to underscore the importance of this issue,” Dr. Yahya Basha, AMC president, said in a statement.
He and other AMC officials are disturbed that Abdallah Arian, a 20-year-old college student and intern for Rep. David Bonior, Michigan Democrat and House minority whip, was ousted from a meeting to brief the American Muslim leadership on the president’s faith-based initiative.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said of the incident: “The president is very concerned that an action was taken that was wrong, inappropriate, and the president apologizes for it on behalf of the White House.”
The Muslim officials said they accept the president’s apology.
But they said they are “very concerned by this incident, which is part of an alarming trend seemingly targeting American Muslims.”
Armey razzes Daschle
House Majority Leader Dick Armey yesterday seized upon a statement by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in which the South Dakota Democrat appeared to support the idea of a “lockbox” for Medicare and Social Security funds.
According to a statement released by Sen. Armey’s office, Daschle “now endorses a House-approved lockbox he consistently blocked in the minority.”
Sen. Daschle, in an appearance Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” said: “The lockbox is a pretty simple matter. It’s just a commitment by the government that we aren’t going to use Medicare for anything other than Medicare, that we’re not going to use Social Security for anything other than Social Security. We know those funds have already been committed. We know we’re going to need them. So to use them for any other purpose is a deceit, is a shell game that we can’t afford. And it’s very unfair to Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries today.”
Sen. Armey, in response, issued the following statement: “I’m pleased to see Senator Daschle now endorses as majority leader what he blocked as minority leader. If he agrees that we can’t afford to raid Social Security or Medicare, then he should do what the House has done and pass the lockbox.
“Republicans wrote the book on protecting Social Security and Medicare surpluses. We won’t stop now.
“Senator Daschle should borrow a page from our book and pass the lockbox legislation to guarantee Congress doesn’t raid those funds for more government spending.”
Lieberman and Gore
So many of former Vice President Al Gore’s advisers and moneymen showed up at a recent fund-raiser for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman that some observers wondered if it was a signal that Gore has decided not to run again for president in 2004.
“Officially, the event was designed to boost the war chest of Lieberman’s Responsibility, Opportunity, Community Political Action Committee, which will pay for the former vice presidential nominee’s political travels,” Roll Call reporter Paul Kane writes.
“However, the ROCPAC event, hosted last Wednesday at the D.C. home of New Democrat ally Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, California Democrat, drew a strong enough showing of Gore allies that some donors and lobbyists were left wondering whether this was a signal of Gore’s waning interest in national politics.”
Lieberman downplayed such speculation, however, saying the Gore operatives were friends from their mutual campaign last fall.
Party of lawyers
“New York’s own Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton and several other Democrat senators have joined a lawsuit against the Bush administration filed by the ultra-greenies at the National Resources Defense Council,” the New York Post reports.
“The reason? The decision to delay the imposition of new standards on concentrations of arsenic in drinking water.
“This move by the Democrats is instructive on several levels. First, it shows how much they prefer litigation and regulation over legislation,” the newspaper said in an editorial.
“Don’t like a decision by the president? Sue ‘im! But, hey, should this be a surprise? After all, Democrats are the party of the trial lawyers. Far worse is the hypocrisy. Keep in mind that the Clinton-Gore administration had eight years to install these new standards. Guess when they moved? On Jan. 20 — as Bill Clinton was on the way to Andrews Air Force Base, bound for Westchester. California’s Barbara Boxer stated, ‘I believe [the Bush administration’s] delay is illegal and is putting millions of Americans with high levels of arsenic in their water at risk.’
“Keep in mind the arsenic levels in the water are now exactly the same as they were under the complete tenure of the Clinton-Gore administration.
“So how come Sen. Boxer didn’t sue the husband of her now-fellow senator for the ‘high levels’ of arsenic while he was still president?
“Actually, it’s the ‘high levels’ of rank partisan politicking that are truly dangerous to American society.”
America’s waning interest
Bill Clinton is only partly to blame for Americans’ dwindling interest in what transpires in Washington. The fact is, Americans prefer discussing other issues around the dinner table.
Trying to explain why Americans have increasingly alienated themselves from national affairs, former Clinton aide David Gergen describes a “passionless public,” one that says to Washington don’t mess things up and “don’t bother me in my life.”
“The public has been extraordinarily disengaged from many of the conversations that have been taking place in Washington, and that follows a pattern we saw ... when Clinton was president,” Gergen says.
Which brings us to a paper by Karlyn H. Bowman, American Enterprise Institute resident fellow, who cites several possible explanations for the public’s disengagement, including “the Clinton scandals and the 2000 election reinforc[ing] impressions of things they don’t like about Washington: corruption, dishonesty, partisan sniping.”
Others, she points out, pay a lot more attention to Washington when things aren’t going well than they do when things are going smoothly.
And finally, contrary to what we might think here in Washington, most Americans don’t follow the ins and outs of complex debates on tax policy, education reform and missile defense.
Taking aim at a Kennedy
A former Navy Seal with no political experience announced yesterday he will run for the Rhode Island congressional seat held by US Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy.
“It’s the challenge that excites me,” said David Rogers, 35, a Republican and technical analyst for the petroleum industry. “Patrick Kennedy has been representing the state poorly for the past eight years. He’s more motivated by what’s best for himself than what’s best for the state.”
Another Republican, businessman Michael Battles, 31, announced his candidacy last week.
Kennedy, 33, son of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, is seeking his fifth term in the fall 2002 election. To date, he has no Democratic primary opposition.
