“LIFE IS NOT FAIR: Saddam Hussein still has a job, and I’m unemployed. You know damn well it’s not fair.”

But what better consolation for the nation’s 41st president, who uttered those words at a panel discussion this year on the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War, to watch his eldest son, President George W. Bush, pick up where he left off.

Former President George Bush and his wife, Barbara, were guests of honor Saturday night at the Georgetown home of former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, toasting the publication of a new book, “Heartbeat: George Bush in His Own Words,” compiled and edited by Bush’s longtime aide and speech writer Jim McGrath.

The former president, says McGrath, speaks often of what he calls “heartbeat,” a simple code word referring to personal bedrock values: Service, duty, honor, friends, faith and, particularly, family.

In his own words, Bush said: “I’m not sure if they knew the real George Bush, I would have been re-elected president. But it’s funny how such differences of opinion — maybe it’s other public figures, too — but I am convinced that the American people didn’t know my heartbeat. And I can’t blame anybody but myself for that.”

Upon further reflection, he added: “Now that my political days are over, I can honestly say that the three most rewarding titles I’ve held are the only three I have left — a husband, a father, and a granddad.”

Dozens of well-known faces came out on a rainy night to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Bush back to town: His former White House press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, his former transportation secretary (now his son’s White House chief of staff), Andy Card, and his former campaign aide (now his son’s senior White House aide), Mary Matalin.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was also on hand, as was former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and more than a dozen media personalities, including former CNN anchor Bernie Shaw. Former presidential daughter-turned-presidential sister Doro Bush Koch was also there to greet to her mom and dad.

In compiling the book, McGrath sifted through 7,521 of Mr. Bush’s public papers encompassing 1,459 days in office, 1,520 presidential speeches, remarks and toasts, and official transcripts from 273 news conferences and exchanges with the White House press corps.

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A Caribbean Muslim

The ambassador of Guyana is saddened and angered by “biased reporting” that portrays Muslims as enemies of the West.

“Muslims have received bad media since Sept. 11,” Ambassador Odeen Ishmael said at Spelman College in Atlanta, where he delivered what he called a “Caribbean Muslim’s perspective” on the events since the terrorist attacks on the United States.

“The acts of small anti-American groups have been given wide publicity, and all Muslims are branded with the same iron by those who believe the views and actions of these small groups are supported by all Muslims.”

He denounced news reports that “insinuate” that Muslim religious leaders have failed to denounce the attacks.

“Such comments are totally untrue,” he said, noting that Muslim leaders who condemned the attacks got little news coverage.

He complained about television reports of Palestinians dancing in the street in praise of Osama Bin Laden and the media’s failure to film Muslims donating blood for the victims of the attacks or going to mosques to pray for them.

“In times like these, good deeds by the majority rarely make good news for the media houses,” he said.

“Such biased reporting to the American public acts to poison people’s minds against all Muslims. Ignorance, itself, is a disease, and it becomes infectious if the affected persons do not receive regular doses of positive knowledge.”

Ishmael, the most senior Caribbean ambassador in Washington, said, “I am a Muslim, and let me state categorically that people of the likes of Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban do not speak for me or for the Muslims in my country.”

He noted that hundreds of Muslims also died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Those who commit those (terrorist) acts, claiming they have done so in the name of Islam, are usurping the name of the religion to cloak their sinful deeds,” he said.