Robin Shulman, Washington Post
As President Bush gives his State of the Union speech Monday, there will be one man in the audience who plans to sit quietly and watch, his very presence a form of protest.
Joseph Libretti, 51, is sick. He has been diagnosed with chronic lung disease since volunteering after Sept. 11, 2001, to cut through steel to remove bodies from the gritty, smoking pile of detritus of the World Trade Center. Now, too weak to return to his job as an ironworker, he mostly keeps close to his Pennsylvania home.
He is among a group of responders demanding a coherent national program to provide local medical treatment for Ground Zero workers from outside New York City who answered the call to help after the terrorist attacks. An existing program was effectively halted in December, when the federal government canceled its search for a contractor to process medical reimbursements.
“The president should take care of the workers,” Libretti said during a telephone interview in which he frequently coughed and lost his breath. “If he sees me and other first responders, he’ll know we’re there.”
I thought Kucinich was going to work on this issue or will he bail out again! I would not count on him!