The Reliable Source
By Lloyd Grove
Friday, May 9, 2003; Page C03
Boycotting the White House
Hundreds of aging Yalies from the Class of 1968 have slapped down deposits to attend a White House picnic hosted by their classmate George W. Bush on the eve of their 35-year reunion.
But a few stout party poopers are taking a stand. They tell us they wouldn't be caught dead with this particular president.
"I'm a member of the Yale Class of '68 who won't be attending the reunion event at the White House because of revulsion towards Bush's policies," writer Jacques Leslie told us yesterday from Mill Valley, Calif. "The war in Iraq was unwarranted and promoted deceptively, his environmental policies are disastrous, and his attack on legal rights and constitutional rights is frightening. I wouldn't be able to shake his hand without showing hostility."
Another classmate, University of Maryland computer science professor Steve Scolnik , demanded: "If Mr. Bush is such a fan of Yale, why did I not see him at the three reunions I have attended out of the four held in the last two decades? Participating in the D.C. event is acting as a prop in a reelection campaign which is already underway. Adding insult to injury, participants are required to pay at least $150 per person for that privilege. What kind of hot dogs are they serving at this picnic, anyway?"
And Palo Alto schoolteacher Doug McGlashan, another boycotting classmate, quoted an unidentified picnicgoer who is attending despite his opposition to Bush. The classmate, who once met Deng Xiaoping during a visit to China, "told me he had shaken the hand of the "Butcher of Tiananmen Square," so shaking George Bush's hand couldn't take him any lower."
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