■ Medical checkup finds President Bush in “outstanding health” and “in the top 2 percent of men his age in cardiovascular fitness.” . . . Bush White House payroll is $84,000 less than Clinton’s in 1998, for staff of same size. . . . Reporters complain about Bush taking extensive August vacation in Texas and ask whether president spends time napping. . . . House majority leader Dick Armey on Americans’ attitude toward Bush: “They don’t expect him to be a media star. They don’t expect him to hang around the cocktail parties with the eastern establishment intellectuals and shine with them. They just want him to get the job done.”
■ National Right to Life Committee’s David O’Steen on Bush’s stem-cell decision, in Washington Times: “In taking this position, the president has acted to save the lives that he could.” . . . Family Research Council head Ken Connor on pro-lifers who support policy, in New York Times: “I find their positions difficult to square with the fundamental principle that life is precious and ought to be preserved. … If a President Al Gore had come out with this position, I am left to wonder whether or not their reaction would have been entirely different.” . . . Bush energy plan, including ANWR drilling, expected to pass Senate committee by single vote. . . . Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) on committee vote against Mary Sheila Gall’s nomination to head Consumer Product Safety Commission: “What she faced was a group of senators with rope in their hands.” . . . Senate majority leader Tom Daschle blasts Bush administration foreign policy as “foolish and shortsighted” in speech at Wilson Center. . . . Dick Gephardt also calls Bush foreign policy “unilateral and perplexing to the rest of the world.” . . . More Gephardt, on Bush amnesty proposal: “Democrats have been leading on the issue of immigration for many years. We did not wait until it became politically expedient to answer the call for fairness and justice in our immigration laws.”
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