Stony Brook Reactions to Bush Veto

By Rachel Young

"That dumbass." Jeanne De Leon poured a customer a cup of hot coffee at Harriman Cafe and muttered a mild expletive about President Bush under her breath. She was responding to the president's anticipated veto Wednesday of a congressional Iraq funding bill that would require American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq by Oct. 1.

On Monday, according to the New York Times, Bush said he wanted to work with Democrats but repeated his intention to veto the bill. Then, on Tuesday night, he vetoed the bill almost immediately after receiving it, saying it set a rigid and artificial deadline for troop withdrawal. "It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you plan to withdraw," he said at the White House. Bush added that the bill sent the message to Iraqis and the rest of the world that America does not keep its commitments.

De Leon, 22, a cashier at the university, said she supported the bill and thinks troops should have started leaving Iraq much earlier. "What does he expect the outcome to be?" she said, in reference to Bush. "We saw the outcome of Vietnam."

Her comments echoed similar anti-war sentiment across the Stony Brook campus and increasingly across the United States. Said Jean Philippe, 23, a computer engineering major, "They [the troops] have been there for too long. I don't think it was a good idea for him to veto the bill."

Giovanna Curcio, 18, a biology major, said she was typically a very antiwar type of person. "I am kind of upset that he vetoed the bill. I don't think [we] should be over there and I just want our troops to be home and safe," she said. "Personally, I don't understand why the president doesn't feel the same way. I just want our troops to come home."

That feeling permeated to other groups on campus. Jane Ely, a sociology professor, crossed her legs and dangled them from a desk after a lecture on social deviance. "I think it's very typical of the

Bush administration to throw their weight around rather than sit down and have a conversation about reality and what the situation really is," she said. "Obviously, they have no clue."