HYPOCRISY 101

Our president got to the White House despite a blizzard of nasty
cocaine jokes from late-night comics and other pundits who lampooned
the hard-drinking past of George "D.W.I." Bush. College students
should be identifying with Bush. Like the commander-in-chief, they
project to certain segments of society the image of reforming party
animals groping for respectable adulthood.

But students aren't identifying with Bush. Many are furious with
him.

Campus activists across the country are mobilizing for fall protests
against a year-old requirement that applicants for federal financial
aid disclose if they have "ever been convicted of possessing or
selling illegal drugs?"

For the final months of the Clinton presidency, smart collegians left
Question 35 blank on student aid forms. Clintonites didn't impose upon
those who skipped the question a congressional ban on grant, loan or
work-study benefits.

Bush education officials have reversed the de facto Clinton policy.
Appointees of President Bush are interpreting a non-answer about drugs
to be an admission of use, much like the comics did to Candidate Bush.

During the presidential race, news reporters couldn't nail down rumors
of Bush's youthful fondness for "blow" and the candidate wouldn't
confirm or deny the coke rumors. Bush handlers spun the awkward
situation into a principled stand by their man against a prying,
sensation-seeking news media.

Now, however, the Bush administration is robustly enforcing the
no-aid-for-druggies rule against those who refuse to answer the
aid-form question. Many students consider the question an invasion of
privacy, much like the Bush campaign did. And they find it irrelevant
to whether they should get help with their educational expenses.

"Students are going crazy over this," said Steven Silverman, campus
coordinator for the Drug Reform Coordination Network in Washington,
D.C. "It's a purely political question, in a way. It has nothing to do
with need."

Students want only a federal loan. Bush wanted to run the federal
government.

Up to 60,000 students could lose their eligibility during the 2001-02
academic year due to prior drug offenses or their refusal to answer,
according to projections by Silverman's group. Fewer than 10,000 lost
out last year.

"Drug use is the only so-called crime that disqualifies people for
financial aid," said Matt Mazzuckelli, 20, who enters his third year
at New College in Sarasota this fall.

The blacklist makes for some curious sights on the frontlines of the
government's oft-misfiring "war on drugs."

The Wall Street Journal found a Massachusetts jail where most inmates
in a writing class taught through a local community college were
enrolled with tuition aid. The class included two child molesters, a
thief and several violent offenders. A crack dealer, considered an
excellent prospect for rehabilitation, was prevented from enrolling
because he couldn't get federal help with the $247 tuition.

This much hypocrisy -- alcohol-related crimes, of course, won't get
you kicked out of the tuition-aid line -- was too much for John Hlinko.

Hlinko is a sort of P. T. Barnum of political protest on the Internet.
In May, the 34-year-old California satirist crowned himself "czar" of
a new cyber-protest group called Students for a Drug-Free White House.

On the group's Web site, http://www.justsayblow.com/ , Hlinko calls on
W. to 'fess up or get off the public payroll: "President Bush, if you
deny federal funds to students who won't talk about their drug histories,
it's only fair that you forgo your federal salary until you are
willing to come clean with your own drug past."

Web visitors agreeing with the statement are invited to sign a
cyber-petition. In three weeks, Hlinko collected 5,000 signatures.

"It's a pretty narrow issue and, with all of the college kids out for
the summer, I was shocked that we got more than a few hundred," said
Hlinko, who worked in investment banking before taking a master's
degree in public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Hlinko said personal experience informed his little protest of Bush
policy.

"First of all, if it wasn't for financial aid, there's no way in hell
I would have gotten through college and grad school," he told the
Weekly Planet. "So, it pissed me off from that sense." Hlinko said he
found it incredible that Bush, of all political leaders, was the one
pushing guilt-by-omission. "Is this an April Fool's Joke?" Hlinko said
he thought to himself. The wheels started turning. The comedy writer
and the campaign manager in him took over. "Let's play on the
hypocrisy element, which has the added advantage of being true,"
Hlinko recalled. "Let's see if we can't add some comedy to it and rope
in a whole lot of people to this struggle who might not have really
cared about it in the first place."

"Just Say Blow" was launched.

Hlinko said he prefers breaking down defenses to haranguing people.
"Once you see them laughing," he said, "then you can start preaching
to them a little bit." Many still in school don't have the luxury of
simply laughing at Bush's inconsistencies. Hlinko fully endorses the
quite serious campaign by Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and
other college organizations to overturn the law.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has filed legislation to give
financial-aid officers more discretion to evaluate the drug
convictions of student applicants.

"This would allow some people, who may have had difficulties with
drugs but are now taking steps to improve their lives by pursuing a
higher education, to continue to be eligible for aid," Frank said at a
recent news conference. "This will help ensure that people in low-to
moderate-income families -- who really need the aid -- are not treated
unfairly."

With Frank at the news conference were representatives from the
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and the
U.S. Student Association.

H.R. 786 has more than 40 co-sponsors, said Frank press secretary
Peter Kovar. As of June 8, no co-sponsors were from Florida.

Christy Stefadouros, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Michael Bilirakis
(R-Tarpon Springs), said her boss has yet to review Frank's bill,
which she termed "controversial."

Stefadouros said Bikirakis aides have logged in just three form
letters of support for the Frank bill.

Mazzuckelli, president of the New College chapter of Students for a
Sensible Drug Policy, promised that will change. Petitions to Congress
and registration of student voters are at the top of the group's
political agenda when classes resume in September, he said. "What
we're seeing from the war on drugs are some disturbing trends over the
last, say, 10 years," said Mazzuckelli, whose academic concentration
is economics. "Funding for higher education has gone down while
funding for prisons has gone up. In fact, the decrease in higher ed is
just about the same amount as the increase for prison construction."