PREZ: TERRORISTS SAW TOO MUCH SPRINGER By DEBORAH ORIN
March 13, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday said the Sept. 11 terrorists must have gotten the idea that America is "soft" by watching too much of "The Jerry Springer Show."
Springer's TV show is a daily verbal mudfest that sometimes explodes into fisticuffs, often on sexually explicit topics - "Lesbian for a Day" and "Wild Sex Jobs 2" are on its latest schedule.
"[The terrorists] didn't think we were a nation that could conceivably sacrifice for something greater than oneself, that we were soft, that we were so self-absorbed and so materialistic we wouldn't defend anything we believed in," Bush said.
"My, were they wrong. They missed. They just were reading the wrong magazine or watching the wrong Springer show," the president told college sports champions.
Bush also told the seven National Collegiate Athletic Association championship teams that they need to be positive role models for younger kids.
"You have a responsibility as a champ to make the right choices and to set a clear example for others," Bush told them on the same day former Yankee Darryl Strawberry was arrested again.
Many critics, including lawmakers, contend that cheesy and violent TV hurts America's kids, but Bush was pointing instead to the decadent image of America it creates around the world.
According to the show's Web site, this is one of today's lurid stories on tap: "Angel is pregnant and just found out that her boyfriend is cheating on her . . . with her aunt."
Yesterday, it was "Pregnant Sex Secrets" featuring "Steven" who wanted "to break his engagement with Randa because he got her sister, Rhonda, pregnant! But Steven doesn't know that Rhonda has a girlfriend and was never intending to stay with him."
It's the second time the White House has gone after entertainment TV during the war on terror: Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer previously blasted late-night comic Bill Maher for painting the U.S. military as cowards.