WASHINGTON - In a mid-day news conference, President Bush repeated his stance that in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, "now is not the time to talk about gun control. Emotions are running high and this is something that requires reasonable debate." (He is pictured above, advising Congress to "back away slowly" from the gun control issue.)Utilizing this same logic, the president also announced that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be unavailable to speak to congressional investigators regarding the probe into the firing of eight federal attorneys. "Again, we are facing that high emotions problem right now; specifically, emotions are running high. And I feel it's best to postpone any hearings until we can talk about it in a civil fashion."
Turning to Iraq, Bush explained: "As you know, the speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, is highly emotional. She's a lovely lady, nice wife and mother, but given the Virginia Tech situation, she's just too emotional for us to talk to about the problems in Iraq at this time."
The White House hinted that the nation should have an 'Emotions Czar" to investigate ways to address the problem and estimated that abnormally high emotions would not allow substantive discussions on any issue until January 2009.
