Putting Politics Aside, Decathletes Greet Bush

It is easy to criticize the president’s policies and intellect when he is 2,300 miles away in Washington. But El Camino Real High School’s championship academic decathlon team found Monday that it takes too much nerve to do so when Air Force One has just landed and George W. Bush is striding over to shake your hand.

So the team--six very vocal Democrats, two quiet Republicans and one besieged Libertarian--stood politely, as directed, at the steps of the president’s plane Monday afternoon. In front of the Republican president, there was neither a debate about oil-drilling in wildlife reserves nor an argument about missile defense. Instead, there was handshaking; Bush congratulated the nine seniors on winning the national academic competition last month, and the group engaged in the small talk that one makes with a world leader.

“Nothing to it--just a surrealistic feeling,” said Aria Haghighi after the tarmac confab at LAX.

El Camino’s decathletes, their two coaches (one Democrat, one Independent) and their Republican principal were among the first to welcome the president to this power-strapped state. Bush has not visited California since he was elected, when El Camino’s decathletes were too young to vote.

Even so, talking politics was a popular pastime for the students during the months they studied for the competition. Invariably, the team’s liberal leanings bubbled up and President Bush took a beating.

“Despite who he is personally, he’s still the president of the United States,” Scott Lulovics said Monday. And that was enough reason to be respectful--that and, “The guys in the black sunglasses scare us,” he said.

On their statewide victory lap, El Camino’s decathletes have found themselves in political circles. Bar recently appeared with Mayor Richard Riordan at his State of the City speech, and coaches Melinda Owen and Christian Cerone signed their names to a mailer promoting the reelection of Valerie Fields to the Los Angeles Board of Education. Last Friday, the team was applauded on the floor of the Assembly.

Meeting the president has been an off-and-on tradition for winners of the U.S. Academic Decathlon. Some teams have traveled to the White House, but others have met with the chief executive when he was in their area. When El Camino won the title in 1998, a similar airport rendezvous was arranged with President Clinton.

For a while, it looked as if this year, El Camino wouldn’t get an audience. The White House had indicated the president’s schedule could not accommodate a meeting.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), whose district includes the El Camino campus in Woodland Hills, took credit for leaning on Bush’s schedulers. Ostensibly on hand Monday to introduce his champion constituents to the president, Sherman urged the students to push his other agenda.

“Just ask the president for regulation of the wholesale price of electricity,” he said.

They left that to their congressman and instead snapped a few pictures. For Grace Giles, Bush autographed a mysterious invitation that her sister Stephanie had received to a Republican dinner and fund-raiser to thank her for “the crucial role [she] played in the 2000 election.”

Stephanie is 12.