The Prez's Iraq humor bombs Kin of slain G.I.s aren't laughing
By DEREK ROSE and KENNETH R. BAZINET DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - President Bush got some laughs at a Washington dinner when he spoofed the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but some family members of dead G.I.s said yesterday there was nothing funny about it.
"Those weapons of mass destruction have to be here somewhere," Bush joshed as he narrated a slide show of him looking behind furniture, as if hunting for them.
"Nope, no weapons over there. Maybe under here," Bush joked Wednesday at the annual dinner of Washington radio and TV correspondents, an event where Presidents typically poke fun at the press and themselves.
George Medina, 43, of Orange County, who lost a son in Iraq, heard about Bush's remarks when his outraged daughter, an Army sergeant, called him yesterday. "She was very upset," Medina said.
"This is disgraceful," Medina continued. "He doesn't think of all the families that are suffering. It's unbelievable, how this guy tries to run the country."
His 22-year-old son, Spec. Irving Medina, died Nov. 14 in Baghdad when an explosive device struck his convoy.
Charles Celestin, 28, of Coral Springs, Fla., and Irving Medina's brother-in-law, blasted the commander-in-chief's remarks.
"To be poking fun; it's just a travesty to the soldiers who lost their lives. I think it's disrespectful," he said.
But the stepdad of a slain Army captain took a different view.
"Maybe that's his way of releasing some of the tension," said Mike Babula, 48, of upstate Marcy, whose stepson, Capt. George A. Wood, 33, died Nov. 20 when his tank ran over a mine. "When you listen to him speak every time a soldier gets killed - it comes from his heart, it really does."
The camp of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry last night fired off a statement from Iraq war veteran Brad Owens.
"No weapons of mass destruction have been found and that is no joke - this is for real. This cheapens the sacrifice that American soldiers and their families are dealing with every single day," said Owens, who served in the Army Reserve.
The dinner performance put the President on the defensive for the second time this week. The Bush campaign was already dealing with fallout from testimony by former presidential aide Richard Clarke, who has claimed in a new book that Bush and his cabinet were looking for reasons to attack Iraq within hours of the 9/11 terror attack despite being told Saddam Hussein was not linked to it.
The President's dinner act also bombed with Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan). "It's disgusting that during his little performance on stage, the President seemed to forget that people are dying in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction he lied about," Nadler said.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan noted that Bush ended his remarks at the dinner with a serious tribute to U.S. forces in Iraq, but "was poking fun at himself" with the comments about weapons of mass destruction.