Inside the Beltway

Wheelchair derby

“It was — thank goodness — an uneventful motorcade to the airport.”

So writes Edwin Chen of the Los Angeles Times in the official White House pool report of President Bush’s motorcade Sunday afternoon from the Bush retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, to a local airport for the flight to Washington.

“‘Thank goodness’ because, at various points along the way, the presidential motorcade traveled at speeds that exceeded 75 mph, according to the speedometer,” Mr. Chen notes. “And this was mostly on a narrow, curving, and sometimes hilly two-lane road — sans sidewalk. More than once, we could hear tires squealing.”

Certainly there weren’t adoring fans lining these narrow, twisting roads?

“Adding to the thrill of the chase were the occasional clusters of people — including children — obviously out to catch a fleeting glimpse of [Mr. Bush],” the scribe says. “Among them, at one point, were more than a dozen seniors, in wheelchairs.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked later about what equates to “reckless driving,” said there was no special reason for such high speeds, surmising that the rush had been intended to minimize the motorcade’s inconvenience to the local residents.

“For the record,” Mr. Chen writes, “passengers in [the press vehicle] clocked the van’s speed variously at 50 mph (in a 25 mph zone), 60 mph (in a 35 mph zone) and above 75 mph (in a 45 mph zone.) The white-knuckles ride lasted about 25 minutes.”

King of terror

Despite the ensuing uproar, Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican, stands by his insistence that 85 percent of the mosques in the United States have “extremist leadership.”

And Mr. King says that although most in the Islamic community are “loyal Americans,” their leadership is reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement when they hear anti-American rhetoric or plots.

Ghazi Khankan, director of the Westbury-based Islamic Center in New York (which Mr. King has visited several times), labels the congressman “out of touch with the Muslim community.”

But Mr. King says he bases his belief on extensive conversations with law enforcement officials in Washington and New York. (He acknowledges that he used this same information on Muslim leaders for a plot line in his new terrorist-related novel, “Vale of Tears.”)

“Most of the Muslim community is cooperating with police and local authorities,” he says. “But 85 percent of the mosques have extremist leadership in this country.”

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