Somber Note Marks Gridiron

Joining the capital’s media elite Saturday for a night of revelry and comic relief, President Bush turned serious long enough to urge journalists to honor slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl by writing letters to his soon-to-be-born son.

Bush concluded the 117th annual Gridiron Club Dinner by also paying tribute to U.S. soldiers who died recently in Afghanistan.

“May God bless the fallen soldiers who came home this week,” he said. “May God bless their families. May God bless Daniel Pearl and Mariane Pearl and her boy and may the world he enters into be more peaceful than the one his father just left.”

Pearl, South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was abducted Jan. 23 in Karachi, Pakistan, and subsequently killed.

Bush urged the journalists to write letters to the boy, send them to the White House, and said he would add his own letter to Pearl’s son and make sure the family gets them.

“You better than anyone know what Daniel Pearl was doing in Afghanistan. You better than anyone can explain the larger purpose he was serving. Some day you’ll help a little boy understand his father a little better, and what a great gift that would be.”

It was a somber ending to a brief speech that began with several jabs at his top advisors, including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman and Vice President Dick Cheney.

He told the crowd that Whitman gave him one of his dogs “and I gave her the EPA. Now we both have messes to clean up.”

Bush even joked about himself, noting that much has changed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “A year ago, Dick Cheney was running the country,” Bush said. “Today, he lives out of a little suitcase.”

Earlier, Whitman delivered the official response to a series of journalist skits about the Bush administration, and poked fun at fellow Republicans about their poor reputation on the environment.