Columnist Faults Bush on Sniper Attacks

Hours after news broke of arrests in the sniper case, New York Newsday hit newsstands with a column blaming President Bush for not doing enough to catch D.C.'s serial killer.

Headlined "Bush Should Take a Walk Near Home" and prominently placed on page 3, Breslin's piece excoriated Bush for campaigning for Republicans across the country instead of staying at home while his city was under siege - and even suggested that the president was a coward for leaving town.

"Bush should have been taking a walk through Silver Spring or Rockville," complained the writer who came to prominence during New York's notorious Son-of-Sam serial murder case.

"That was his job. He pledged to defend the nation. He could have started by helping to repel the attack on Washington."

"It was one thing that Bush was completely disdainful of the World Trade Center," the columnist bellyached. "He and his people hate New York. He barely showed for a year. And they blew the attack. They blew it because any threats to New York weren't of such vital interest."

Breslin then claimed that the reason Bush allegedly doesn't like New York is because he's a bigot:

"New York is filled with blacks and Jews and all kinds of Hispanics and Asians who don't vote right," he wrote. "We don't bother with them during an election, then why stop everything and concentrate on some threat to the place?"

The incendiary writer then said Bush feels the same way about the D.C. area, arguing, "nobody in the shooting area, in Montgomery County towns, voted for him."

Breslin compared Bush unfavorably to President Lyndon Johnson, whom he claimed had defied a Secret Service warning about threats to his safety to march behind slain President John F. Kennedy's casket.

"I'd rather be shot than let anybody think I'm afraid to go out on that street," Johnson said, according to the writer. Breslin then concluded, "Somebody should have shown George Bush the words."

The ill-timed column appeared in millions of copies of Newsday distributed throughout New York City and Long Island, was taken down for about an hour from the paper's Web site Thursday morning. But by 10:30 a.m. it had reappeared.

This was written by Breslin in November, 1998, just before he lost control of his southend and began wearing adult diapers:

The Monica Bomb

For most of the week, Fat Monica was the face that was about to launch a thousand air strikes.

Clinton wanted to bomb Baghdad and have big explosions on television so the country and Congress could forget about Monica and maybe totally obliterate everything: Monica, impeachment, maybe even an indictment for perjury.

Then yesterday at the United Nations it was decided that we wouldn't bomb babies after all. Iraq sent a letter to the UN on First Avenue saying it would allow weapons inspectors to come in again.

And on Friday she was around New York trying to make you remember her. Here she came out of one place on Lexington Avenue after lunch and I'm sorry, she looked big enough to block for the Green Bay Packers. She had the world's lousiest boyfriend and she tries to make up for it with whipped cream.

When the bombing was held up yesterday, Clinton must have found it intolerable. Why, he could have had this thing settled the last time, only months ago, when he had the carriers steaming through blue water and the planes ready to shriek into the air and he could fill all of television with bombs, bombs, bombs.

Then Iraq gave in to inspections. Peace got in the way and talk of Monica and impeachment continued.

This time, Clinton wondered what he should do and the answer he gave himself again: "Still Kill."

Monica would be gone from the nation's capital.

She would have to settle for going around to restaurants in New York and say that her boyfriend was going to start a war just for her. The rest of you can hold hands with a guy at a fireworks show. My boyfriend uses live bombs!

If the war went on, she would think it was "Monica's War."

Clinton becomes the first leader of a nation in world history to contemplate war to distract attention from a squalid love life.

If he had planes out ripping this time, they would have pushed Thursday's scheduled impeachment hearing into the Potomac.

How are you going to keep talking about Monica when you can cheer for smart bombs blowing up Iraq?

On Friday it looked like he was ready for action. He had a double girl day.

Paula Jones collected $850,000 from Clinton. That's some president we have, paying off women. She also is supposed to get a million dollars from Abe Hirshfeld. She has a better chance of fighting a boa constrictor than getting anything over $20 from Abe.

And I am riding with a friend of mine who is a photographer and he suddenly pulls the car up on Lexington Avenue. "Look! It's her!"

He tumbles out of the car.

Camera ready, he runs to the front of, what was it, Gino's?

And here she was. Fat Monica. She was in a red down jacket of some kind, a black baseball cap and sunglasses.

It was reported to me that this was what she had for lunch. Spaghetti carbonara, which is spaghetti with bacon and cream sauce, and a great big plate of it is about 2,500 calories. A loaf and a half of Italian bread. Then cheesecake and coffee.

Now, outside, when she sees my photographer friend Rick, she goes "Oh!"

"Hiya," he says.

She spun and growled and rushes back into the restaurant. Which is her act. Go in and scream, "You told them!" Then come right back out again for another picture. How is she going to ask for all this money for her story or television appearance if she lets the name die?

Her arms were coat hangers for the following shopping bags:

Ann Taylor, Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf, Lord and Taylor.

While nobody in government can explain in public why we're ready to destroy Iraq at this moment, one look at her told you all.

She is hurting and the guy will do anything to make her go away.

A good small war with Saddam, and it's good that Saddam is the Castro of the Mideast, the guy you attack in speeches or planes.

There have been women who led countries into war, but always for their own evil, not to cover up for a man.

No scholar I spoke to on Friday could find a man who took a country into war over a woman.

A few hours ago, Clinton had this country just short of war to distract a nation from a young woman with a food disorder named Monica Lewinsky.

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