The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 26, 2001, Image 3
I
Bush jokes with Gridiron Club
by Lawrence Knutson
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Bush
poked fun at perceptions that he is a little
short of intelligence and that his vice
president is in control as he made his
first appearance in the Gridiron Club’s
116th annual spoof Saturday night.
“These stories about my intellectual
capacity do get under my skin a little
bit,” Bush told the w}iite-tie gathering.
He said it appeared to him that even
his staff doubted his brain power because
every day he got an “intelligence
briefing.” And he said he was heeding
• some advice he got from longtime
Democratic power Robert Strauss: “You
can fool some of the people all of the
time — and those are the people you
need to concentrate on.”
The president said there was a lot
people didn’t know about him, such as
his interest in the human genome.
“I hope it eventually clones another
Dick Cheney. Then, I won’t have to do
anything,” he joked of his vice president’s
reported heavy influence in the
administration.
He dismissed suggestions that
Cheney is the decision-maker in the
White House. “To those people, I say
...” At that point, he paused, turned to
Cheney and said, “Dick, what do I say?”
Bush admitted he had “foot-and
mouth disease” when it comes to the
English language, saying he has been told
that his lips “are where words go to die.”
The bulk of the show was a spoofing
of the politicians whose reach for power
last year sputtered or thrived over
disputed ballots full of hanging or dimpled
chads.
The menu of jokes covered the result
of the long count in Florida, the election
deciding Supreme Court, the Bush
family’s “Tex-Mex” blue blood, Bill and
Hillary Clintons’ new furniture and last
minute pardons.
Every president since Benjamin
Harrison has been a Gridiron guest before
an audience that includes journalists,
Cabinet members, senators, governors,
generals and ambassadors.
Macedonian troops launch attack
against ethnic Albanian insurgents
by Jerome Delay
Associated Press
GAJRE, Macedonia —
Government troops punched through
rebel lines and moved into a hillside
village Sunday, spraying houses with
bullets as they spearheaded an offensive
to push ethnic Albanian insurgents back
from Macedonia’s second-largest city.
While not claiming all-out victory,
Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said
government forces were doing well,
asserting that the thrust to “clear the
terrain of terrorists... is being carried
out successfully, and already key positions
have been taken.”
The fighting has brought combatants
into their closest quarters yet in the six
week conflict near the Macedonian
border with the Serbian province of
Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians
constitute a majority. NATO, which has
policed Kosovo since expelling
former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic’s troops in 1999, wants the
Macedonian conflict defused to prevent
a wider Balkan war.
The rebels say their aim is limited
to more rights for ethnic Albanians within
Slav-dominated Macedonia, but the
government accuses them of seeking
independence and drawing on Kosovo
for fighters and weapons.
In Washington, President Bush said
he hoped U.S. and NATO efforts will
prove effective in helping Macedonia
quell the conflict.
“I’m hoping, of course, that the
government is stable and we’re able to
seal off the border to prevent people and
arms from getting to the rebels,” Bush
told reporters as he returned to the White
House after a morning jog.
On Sunday afternoon, Macedonian
troops led by seven armored personnel
carriers and two tanks moved into the
village of Gajre, in the hills just northwest
of Tetovo, breaking through a rebel
roadblock and forcing the insurgent?
to pull back.
Houses and cars were burning in the
village, and bullets sent roof tiles flying
as troops blasted houses suspected of
harboring rebels. Two helicopters strafed
the hillsides.
After the fighting ended, dozens of
terrified people who had been hiding in
a cellar surfaced and rushed into the thick
forest around the village.
“Our operations gained intensity and
are progressing according to plan,” said
Antonio Milososki, a government
spokesman. “Several terrorist positions
have been taken.”
•>
(Bearing
Witness to
Violence
toflien
What is the Clothesline?
The Clothesline Project provides an
opportunity for female survivors of violence
I to paint a t-shirt expressing their inner
sorrows and triumphs. These t-shirts are
then displayed on Greene Street so that others can
bear witness to the survivor’s experience.
T-Shirts are color-coded in order to recognize the uniqueness
of each Clothesline Participant’s violent encounter.
White for those who have died from violence
Yellow for those who have been battered/assaulted
Pink for those who have been sexually assaulted
Blue for survivors of incest or child sexual abuse
Purple for those attacked because of their sexual;
orientation
2001 Clothesline Project Events:
Student Poster Display - RH 2nd Floor Lobby, 3/26-3/30.
*
* -’VivaonNk
Chimera
Self
Defense
Workshop
Tuesday,
March 27, 2001
RH Ballroom
7:00p.m.
(for women only)
The
Grand
Display
Wednesday,
March 28, 2001
Greene Street
10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Keynote Speaker
Donald
McPherson
Thursday,
March 29, 2001
Scholarship lounge
the Stadium
7:00p.m.
For more information concerning the Clothesline Project, call CISC's Office for Sexual
Health and Violence Prevention at 777-7619.
Student Health Services vDepa.tment of Student Development • Division of Student & Alcmni Services
Energy Crisis
U.S. says it won’t
beg OPEC for oil
by Brigitte Greenberg
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Bush
administration will not go “begging the
OPEC countries or anybody else” to
increase oil production as long as the
United States has untapped reserves that
could ease an energy pinch, Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham said Sunday.
Making the case for oil drilling in
Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
Abraham said no one should be surprised
that the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting
Countries recently chose
to cut output to keep
prices high.
“They have decided
to put their own
interests first, and I tliink
that’s something the
American people need
to recognize," Abraham
told Fox News Sunday.
“We are not going to
take the approaph of
begging the OPEC
countries or anybody
else with respect to oil
production.”
Abraham’s com
nienis come amid concern about power
shortages and blackouts in California
and the possibility of soaring electricity
and gasoline prices across the country
this summer.
Democrats aigue that there are ways
to improve the country’s energy
efficiency odier tlian drilling in the Arctic
refuge and that fuel shouldn’t come at
the expense of the environment.
Some Democrats say President Bush,
a Texas oil man, is wrongly using the
California energy crisis to make his
argument, when the state is suffering a
shortage of electricity, not oil.
During the presidential campaign,
Bush repeatedly talked of pressuring
OPEC to keep oil production reasonable.
He suggested his administration would
be able to sway OPEC nations better
than President Clinton’s was. Some
Republicans described Clinton’s approach
as embarrassing “tin-cup diplomacy.”
Abraham said the Bush
administration will make the argument
to OPEC leaders that the supply and
demand of the market should determine
price, not cartel
manipulations.
“We should not
expect OPEC to
necessarily just do what
the United States
considers in its best
interests. And I think
that just aigues for us to
develop more energy
resources here at
home,” Abraham said.
Development of
Alaskan reserves is a
critical element of
Bush’s eneigy strategy.
The refuge could hold
as much as 16 billion
barrels of oil, laiger than
reserves in neighboring Prudhoe Bay,
though the oil wouldn’t be available for
a decade.
Bush lias acknowledged that opening
the Arctic refuge to drilling may be a
hard sell in Congress. Senate Democrats
have pledged to block legislation that
would lift the refuge’s protection.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said the
refuge should remain pristine and that
it is “completely fraudulent” for
Republicans to suggest America’s
dependency on oil is going to be solved
by drilling in the refuge.
‘We are not
going to take
the approach
of begging the
OPEC countries
or anybody else
with respect to
oil production.’
Spencer Abraham
Energy Secretary
News Briefs
■ McCain predicts
finance bill chaos
WASHINGTON (AP) — Previewing
the second week of campaign finance
debate. Republican Sen. John McCain
on Sunday predicted more “hysteria as
we come closer to passage” of his bill
to ban soft money and also fought to
head off momentum for a rival plan.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R
Miss., said he liked an alternative that
would limit, not ban, soft money. Sen.
Mitch McConnell, who opposes
McCain's leading proposal, also
endorsed the cap. Senators hope to
reach a compromise on campaign
donation regulations by the end of the
week. McCain, R-Ariz., continued to
■ press for a full ban on soft money, the
loosely regulated, unlimited donations
that unions, corporations and
individuals make to political parties.
The plan that he and Sen. Russ
Feingold, D-Wis„ are sponsoring does
not increase the amount that an
individual can contribute to a
candidate.
■ Comair, pilots
break off talks
HEBRON, Ky. (AP) — Comair and
its pilots broke off talks Sunday on a
new contract, and the regional airline
said it canceled most of its flights
scheduled for Monday in preparation
for a possible strike by the pilots.
Comair spokeswoman Meghan Glynn
said negotiators were told by union
leaders Sunday that they were unable
to compromise on the major issues.
The Air Line Pilots Association
blamed the company for abandoning
negotiations, and said a strike at 12:01
a.m. Monday was nearly assured.
▼
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