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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, October 24, 2003

A handful of Bush in the bird

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

The Hawaiian language has the perfect description for President Bush's 12-hour visit to Hawai'i.

Kolea.

The kolea bird, or Pacific golden plover, shows up in Hawai'i late in summer and hangs around until late spring before heading out to cold places like Alaska.

Pukui and Elbert's Hawaiian-English Dictionary includes this passage in its definition of the word:

"a scornful reference to foreigners who come to Hawai'i and become prosperous, and then leave with their wealth, just as the plover arrives thin in the fall each year, fattens up, and leaves; a less common figurative reference is to one who claims friendship or kinship that does not exist."

Fly in, go to two high-dollar fund-raisers, and fly out. Same thing.

Sure, Bush visited Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri surrender deck. But even that could too easily be seen as a self-serving opportunity to further his agenda on national security and continued aggression on foreign soil. The deep-seated emotion and pangs of patriotism that Pearl Harbor still elicits from the nation make for the perfect platform from which to give the "never again" speech that segues into all sorts of rationalizations for irrational acts of aggression.

President and Mrs. Bush also stopped by an elementary school, read to some second-graders (guess the rest of the school had to sit this one out) while armed sharpshooters looked on from the school rooftops. How great for the keiki.

How should the president spend 12 hours in Hawai'i?

How about a tour of Makua to see whatever is left after the last big brushfire?

How about having public school students read to him instead? The kids could share essays on what it's like to get an education in an underfunded, overtaxed, bureaucracy-laden school system.

How about talking to people, real people, front-line people like special-ed teachers and drug counselors and administrators trying to cope with "No Child Left Behind"? And instead of paying $10,000 to meet the president, wouldn't it be great if those wealthy supporters of the Hawai'i Republican Party gave that money to IHS or Habitat for Humanity or the YMCA?

Hawai'i is more than Pearl Harbor and luxurious hotels. Hawai'i has the face of paradise, the reputation of aloha, but underneath, a harsh reality that pulls too many people down like a powerful undertow. It would have been nice for the president to see some of that, because there are people here who could sure use some help.

And because I know I'm going to get an angry barrage, let me just apologize ahead of time. To all those who eagerly await the arrival of the kolea, delight in their visits and organize in groups called "plover lovers," I apologize for casting aspersions on the beloved birds.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com