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The Forsyth County News
Opinion
This is a page of opinions ours, yours and others.
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CITY COUNCIL
Mayor, H. Ford Gravitt
RO. Box 3177. Cumming, GA 30028; (770)
Mayor Pro-Tern, Lewis Ledbetter
205 Mountain Brook Dr., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-3019
Ralph Perry
1420 Pilgrim Rd., Cumming. GA 30040; (770) 887-7474
Quincy Holton
103 Hickory Ridge Dr., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-5279
Rupert Sexton
705 Pine Lake Dr., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-4332
John Pugh
10813th St.. Cumming. GA 30040; (770) 887-3342
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Charles Laughinghouse, Post 1
3550 Rosewicke Dr.. Cumming. GA 30040
(770) 886-7937: office, (770) 886-2810
David “AJ." Pritchett, Post 2
4840 Chesterfield Court, Suwanee, GA 30024
(404) 392-6983: office. (770) 886-2809
John A. “Jack” Conway, Post 3
6130 Polo Club Dr., Cumming. GA 30040
(770) 886-9226; (770) 886-2807
Marcie Kreager, Post 4
9810 Kings Rd., Gainesville. GA 30506
office. (770) 886-2806
Eddie Taylor. Post 5
4195 Morningside Dr.. Cumming, GA 30041
(770) 886-2802
BOARD OF EDUCATION
Ann Crow
96 Barker Rd.. Cumming. GA 30040
(770) 887-9640: acrow@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Paul Kreager
9810 Kings Rd.. Gainesville. GA 30506
(770) 889-9971: pkreager@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Nancy Roche
7840 Chestnut Hill Rd.. Cumming. GA 30041
(770) 889-0229: nroche@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
Rebecca K. Dowell
2030 Commonwealth Place. Cumming. GA 30041
(770) 844-0830: rdowell@fcxsyth.kl2.ga.us
Chairman Jeffrey Stephens
PC. Box 169. Cumming, GA 30028
(770) 889-1470: jstephens@forsyth.kl2.ga.us
NATIONAL LEGISLATORS
U.S. Sen. Zell Miller
Russell Senate Office Building. Room C-3
Washington. DC. 20510
(202) 224-3643; Fax: (202) 228-2090
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss
1019 Longworth House Office Building
Washington. D.C.20515
(202) 224-3521
U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, 10th District
2437 Raytxjm House Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20515
Gainesville: PO. Box 1015, Gainesville. GA 30503
Gainesville. (770) 535-2592
Washington: (202) 225-5211; Fax: (202) 225-8272
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U.S. Rep. John Linder, 7th District
1727 Longworth House Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20515-1011
Washington: (202) 225-4272; Fax: (202) 225-4696
STATE LEGISLATORS
Sen. David Shafer, 48th District
109 State Capitol
Atlanta, GA 30334
(404)651-7738
Sen. Casey Cagle, 49th District
421 State Capitol, Atlanta, GA 30334
(404) 656-6578; (fax) (404) 651-6768
Sen. Dan Moody, 27th District
(770) 695-3127;
Office (404) 463-8055
Sen. Renee Unterman, 45th District
(770) 466-1507;
Office (404)463-1368
Rep. Tom Knox, 14th District
Legislative Office Building, Room 504
18 Capitol Square, Atlanta, GA 30334
(404) 656-0188, (770) 887-0400, law office
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Rep. Jan Jones, 38th District
412 Legislative Office Building, Atlanta GA 30334
(404) 656-0137
Rep. Jack Murphy, 14th District
Legislative Office Building,
Room 612, Atlanta GA 30334
(404) 656-0325
(770) 781-9319, home
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TIE SINCEREST FoM OF fIffTERY
President gets mixed reviews
WASHINGTON When
George W. Bush faced the
nation in a rare prime time
press conference, he was
responding to a crisis of confi
dence among his Republican
supporters. His recent difficul
ties in dealing with adversity
had planted serious doubts
among party leaders. The presi
dent s performance Tuesday
night eased their anxiety about
an imminent loss of support by
his base, but worriers were not
completely reassured.
Considering how he has
handled the first three months
of this election year. President
Bush's press conference was
indeed a welcome relief.
Republicans had feared anoth
er public relations disaster fol
lowing twin failures in his
State of the Union address and
his appearance on NBC's
Meet the Press.'' While he
dodged a third bullet Tuesday
night. Republicans concede
Bush was less than tri
umphant.
Republican political opera
tives are pinching themselves
that the polls show the presi
dent no worse than even
against Democratic challenger
John Kerry. That is attributed
in the political community to
Bush's built-in advantage
fighting terrorism and Kerry's
flat performance since clinch
ing the Democratic nomina
tion —a shaky base for elec
toral success.
Liberal hypocrisy is idiotic entertainment
The Bush-bashers who
have relentlessly accused the
president and his War on
Terror team of acting like
jack-booted bigots are now
imperiously attacking them
for acting like light-footed
fumblers. This self-serving
display of liberal hypocrisy
has provided more idiotic
entertainment than "The Nick
& Jessica Variety Hour."
In an editorial this week
that embodies the Left's
unmitigated gall, the New
York Times castigated
President Bush for not doing
enough after receiving an Aug.
6, 2001, briefing memo warn
ing vaguely of bin Laden
planned domestic terrorism.
According to the Times, Bush
should have "rushed back to
the White House, assembled
all his top advisers and
demanded to know what, in
particular, was being done to
screen airline passengers to
make sure people who fit the
airlines' threat profiles were
being prevented from board
ing American planes."
That's right. The same edi
torial board that has barbecued
the Bush Justice Department
after the Sept. 11 attacks for
fingerprinting young male
temporary visa holders travel
ing from terror-sponsoring and
terror-friendly nations (edito
rial, June 6, 2002); temporari
ly detaining asylum seekers
from high-risk countries for
background screening (editori
al, Dec. 28, 2002); and send-
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Robert £*■
Novak
Bush was fortunate that
high-profile hearings by the
independent commission on
terrorism and escalated war
fare in Iraq coincided with the
congressional Easter recess.
Had the lawmakers been
around. Capitol Hill would
have become a wind tunnel of
bipartisan complaints about
the president.
Congressional Republicans
I reached, while unwilling to
be quoted by name, were
harshly critical that the presi
dent and his aides had failed
to evoke the impression of
strong leadership. They could
not believe that Bush stuck to
his plans to be at his Texas
ranch as violence spiked and
death tolls mounted in Iraq.
They grumbled that there was
no effective White House
response to rising criticism
and that beleaguered Bush
spokesman Scott McClellan
was a disaster. They cited
Bush adviser Karen Hughes,
hawking her book on "Meet
the Press" two Sundays ago,
as the only effective voice for
the president.
The time was past due for
Bush to go to the nation. For a
president who only twice pre-
Michelle ' ' w
Malkin W K
ing undercover agents to
investigate mosques suspected
of supporting terrorism (edito
rial. May 31, 2002) now
expects us to believe it would
have applauded Bush for his
vigilance if he had swiftly
ordered airport security offi
cials to stop thousands of
young Middle Eastern men at
airports during the summer of
2001 on the basis of an ill
defined threat.
Rear-view mirror know-it
alls from Bob Kerrey to
Maureen Dowd berate the
Bush Justice Department for
ignoring the "Phoenix memo"
—a prescient July 2001 warn
ing about Arab flight students
from Arizona-based FBI agent
Kenneth Williams. The memo
revealed that Arab terrorists
had infiltrated Arizona civil
aviation schools and urged the
FBI to check on the back
grounds of flight students
nationwide.
When the Phoenix memo
surfaced two years ago, the
Times characterized the FBl's
failure to heed Williams' rec
ommendation as "one indica
tor of the paralytic fear of
risk-taking" at the bureau. But
the Times smugly ignored the
real problem that the racial
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS - Frldiy, April 16, 2004 -
viously in more than three
years had held a prime time
televised press conference,
Tuesday's venue seemed odd.
Dropping in the polls while
Iraqi insurgents launched a
shooting war. Bush chose to
face predictably harsh ques
tions from an unsympathetic
press corps. Congressional
Republicans asked why he did
not go public with a full
length prepared speech. It was
too late for that, it was decid
ed at the White House. Now,
Bush had to face news media
questioning that he detests.
The result was an unprece
dented hybrid: the president
delivering a 17-minute speech
to the nation over the heads of
reporters, who anxiously wait
ed their turn. Bush was ready
to parry Democratic claims
that Iraq was becoming anoth
er Vietnam, contending that
the "false" analogy "sends the
wrong message to our troops
and sends the wrong message
to the enemy." Facing the
anticipated onslaught of press
demands that he apologize or
admit error, the president
wisely avoided an answer that
would have been repeated
endlessly on television.
Inexplicably, however.
Bush seemed adrift when
asked whether he had ever
made a mistake other than
trading Sammy Sosa to the
Chicago Cubs w hen he owned
the Texas Rangers. He appar-
grievance-mongering newspa
per itself has contributed to:
the fear of a politically correct
backlash from civil liberties
absolutists, ethnic lobbyists
and open-borders activists. As
one law enforcement official
close to the Williams investi
gation told the Los Angeles
Times, "If we went out and
started canvassing, we'd get in
trouble for targeting Arab
Americans."
In addition to the Phoenix
memo. Bush critics have res
urrected Minnesota-based FBI
agent Coleen Rowley's May
2002 memo complaining
about legal barriers to search
ing terrorist suspect Zacarias
Moussaoui's laptop and resi
dence. The duplicity of civil
rights absolutists attacking the
FBI for upholding the proba
ble cause standard in this case
is simply stunning.
While they heap praise on
Rowley for her post-Sept. 11
analysis, Richard Ben-Veniste,
Jar.ie Gorelick, and the other
finger-pointing blabbermouths
on the 9-11 Commission
refuse to credit the Bush
administration for its use of
immigration law to detain
Moussaoui in mid-August
2001 (he had violated the
terms of the Visa Waiver pro
gram). This unheralded
enforcement decision before
the terrorist attacks quite pos
sibly saved thousands of lives.
Transcripts of interrogations
with al Qaeda's purported
operations chief, Khalid
ently did not anticipate being
asked why he and Vice
President Dick Cheney insist
ed on testifying together to the
independent commission, and
simply refused to give a
responsive answer even when
the question was repeated.
That is why the president
avoids press conferences.
If Bush did not excel
Tuesday night, he probably
did well enough to avoid mass
defection of supporters that
has become the deepest fore
boding in the Republican
political community. Their
apprehensions have been
eased by the lackluster per
formance of Sen. Kerry, look
ing more like Bob Dole than
Bill Clinton as a presidential
challenger. Republicans have
been reassured and Democrats
alarmed how quickly Bush-
Cheney campaign advertising
drove up Kerry's negatives.
Wiser heads in both parties,
however, realize that presiden
tial re-election campaigns ulti
mately become a referendum
on the incumbent. The consen
sus among Republican opera
tives 1 contacted was that
George W. Bush gets passing
grades for his press conference
after what he calls "tough
weeks" but must do better in
the predictably difficult months
ahead.
Robert Novak is a nation
ally syndicated columnist and
a television commentator.
Sheikh Mohammed, released
three weeks ago reveal that
Moussaoui was training for a
post-Sept. 11 suicide mission
on the West Coast.
At the time Moussaoui was
detained. the Justice
Department had no evidence
he had done anything illegal
other than overstay his visit to
the U.S., a transgression that
is routinely pooh-poohed by
liberals and other open-bor
ders advocates as a "minor" or
"technical" immigration viola
tion that shouldn't be pun
ished.
Unsurprisingly, when
Attorney General John
Ashcroft acted decisively to
detain more than 1,200 poten
tial Zacarias Moussaouis after
Sept. 11 he was lambasted by
Democrats, the ACLU, minor
ity groups, and. yes. the New
York Times editorial board,
which attacked Ashcroft's
"extreme measures" (Nov. 10,
2001) against illegal alien
detainees who were merely
"Muslim men with immigra
tion problems" (Sept. 10,
2002)
Like the boy who cried
"wolf," the liberals who cry
that the Bush administration
"didn't do enough" to fight ter
rorism should be dismissed as
sniveling children stuck in an
indulgent world of make
believe.
Michelle Malkin is a
nationally syndicated colum
nist. Her e-mail address is
malkin @ comcast. net.
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