'No Entiendo'

Fuentes did not return a call for comment, but it's strange that he
and the other trustees are suddenly concerned about study abroad
programs in countries that refused President Bush's invitation to
join--or, in Spain's case, dropped out of--the Coalition of the
Willing.

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/26/news-arellano2.php

March 4 - 10, 2005

Tom Fuentes and friends axe Saddleback College's Spain study abroad
program

by GUSTAVO ARELLANO


As the chair of Orange County's Republican Party from 1984 until last
year, Tom Fuentes distinguished himself by waging vindicative,
sometimes bizarre campaigns against enemies real and perceived.

As a trustee for the South Orange County Community College District
(SOCCCD), Fuentes continues his GOP battle plan by launching a
campaign against . . . Spain?!

Sí: España.

Fuentes unveiled his new crusade at the Feb. 28 SOCCCD Board of
Trustees meeting, when he requested a discussion on Item 10 from the
night's consent calendar.

The item would have allowed Saddleback College students to study
abroad in Santander, Spain, during the summer.

It wasn't expected to generate much controversy; the SOCCCD board has
allowed Saddleback students to learn Spanish in the Iberian country
for the past 15 years.

But Fuentes shocked everyone in the audience when he began to assail
his ancestral home.

"One hundred ninety-five years ago, in 1810, my family arrived on this
continent from Spain, so I have an affection for that land," Fuentes
said.

But he quickly dropped the amicable pretense, simultaneously attacking
Saddleback College's study abroad program as catering to "an elite"
and as a death wish given the March 11, 2004, Madrid train bombings
that left 193 dead.

Terror wasn't what disturbed Fuentes the most, though.

"Now: something more," he intoned sternly.

"Many of our students in this college, and of its sister college
Saddleback and Irvine, past and future today, fight on the battlefield
of Iraq under the flag that is behind us. Spain has abandoned our
fighting men and women, withdrawing their support. I see no reason to
send the students of our colleges to Spain at this moment in history."

____________________________________________________________

Yup.

Harry