SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 2010 COLBERT I. KING


Another youth pays for city’s dysfunction


under the care of the city’s Department of Youth Re- habilitation Services who had just been charged with the slaying of D.C. school principal Brian Betts. Hart told me her son, Keith Deantre Washington, then 16, had a juvenile record, was under DYRS su- pervision and had run away three times from DYRS community facilities. She said she called because Keith was still on the loose and she had been unable to get the agency to place him in a rehabilitation fa- cility that he couldn’t easily leave. “He’s either going to get himself hurt or end up hurting someone if he isn’t caught and placed in detention where he can get help,” she said. Last Tuesday afternoon, Hart called to say that


“I


Keith had been found dead early Sunday morning in Maryland, just across the District line. He had been murdered. Iwrote about Hart, her son and DYRS in May [“A


mother’s tale of D.C. juvenile custody,” May 8]. It was an exercise in futility. The boy’s dead. His mom’s dying inside. His DYRS case manager is still drawing a paycheck. Sadly, that’s not what people care about these


days. It’s all about Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee: Will her coattails pull Mayor Adrian Fenty to electoral victory? About D.C. Council chairman and mayoral contender Vincent Gray: Can he do well west of 16th Street NW? And about power: Which side of the District has the most political clout? The conversation is certainly not about the de-


struction — and self-destruction — of young black boys in our city. Naw, black boys are the source of all the bad stuff that keeps the District from becoming a world-class city. They are the face of the school system’s high dropout rates. They are the earners of those low test scores in the achievement gap. They are the bodies lying on the ground behind the yel- low tape. Black boys are best not discussed these days in polite company or on the campaign trail. Nonetheless, I sat down this week at an Adams


Morgan restaurant with Bryan Weaver, an advisory neighborhood commissioner and Democratic D.C. Council candidate for Ward 1who has been working in the trenches for years, trying to find alternatives for youth caught up in street life. I was also follow- ing up on an Aug. 17 e-mail Weaver sent to me and others about youth violence around 17th and Euclid streets NW— another subject of past columns [“The View from 17th and Euclid,” May 3, 2003; “Home- land Security, Washington Style,” May 10, 2003; “Gun ‘n’ Run — D.C.’s Game,” Nov. 8, 2003].Weaver was trying to come to grips with the latest murder of a youth with Adams Morgan roots, the 10th homi- cide victim since his election to the ANC in 2002. “Almost every young man from our community


that in past years has been shot or arrested,” Weaver wrote, “had at some point in time been under su- pervision of DYRS.” We talked about the city’s New Beginnings facility for the worst juvenile offenders, located in Laurel. As Weaver’s e-mail noted: 60 beds for 550 youths who in 2009 were charged with the most violent crimes — robbery, rape and homicide. Those 60 beds, Weaver observed, don’t even begin to cover the more than 1,500 other juvenile offenders who were sent home or to halfway houses — often back in the same neighborhoods where they got in trou- ble. “The facility has 60 available beds, and some fear


that dangerous criminals might be released for sheer lack of space,” The Post reported on May 29, 2009, a few days before the $46 million New Begin- nings facility opened. If only the John Wilson Build- ing politicians had listened. Had the administrations of former mayors Shar-


on Pratt Kelly or Anthony Williams made such a lamebrained decision, the media would have pounded them into the ground. Today, that building, those young offenders and the conditions in their homes and community that helped land them where they are have been conven- iently dropped from the discussion. But not before Fenty changed DYRS leadership last month. It was too late, far too late, however, to stop Rhonda Hart from having to make funeral arrangements for her son this week. Note: When contacted this week about Keith


Washington, Robert Hildum, interim DYRS direc- tor, said confidentiality statutes precluded him from commenting on cases involving youth under DYRS supervision.


kingc@washpost.com


are speculating that President Obama may replace Vice President Biden in 2012 with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It’s not going to happen. Let’s move on. Most modern vice presidents have been subject to


Forget it, folks — Biden is here to stay O


by Joel K. Goldstein


ver the years, “Let’s Dump the Vice President” has played inside the Beltway more often than “Casablanca.” So it’s not surprising that some


this sort of rumor. Even influential vice presidents, such as Walter Mondale and Dick Cheney, did not es- cape stories that their jobs were in jeopardy — despite the lack of basis for such suggestions. Only three of the 23 vice presidents since 1900 have been dumped, and in each case for reasons that don’t apply here. The two Democratic dumpees were two of Franklin Roosevelt’s vice presidents. John Nance Gar- ner challenged FDR for the presidency in 1940. Henry Wallace had always been anathema to Democratic bosses and was a heartbeat away when FDR’s health was noticeably failing. Later, Nelson Rockefeller was a serious liability in Gerald Ford’s effort to win the 1976 Republican nomination when challenged by Ronald Reagan.


Biden has none of these liabilities. He is not going to challenge Obama for nomination; neither is any other serious Democratic opponent. If someone does, Biden will serve as Obama’s chief surrogate to secure his renomination, a role in which Mondale per- formed effectively in 1980 for Jimmy Carter and Dan Quayle did 12 years later for George H.W. Bush. Un- like Wallace and Rockefeller, Biden is popular within


his party. And Biden has attended to his party role, whereas Wallace and Rockefeller did not during their vice presidencies. The speculators ignore other lessons from history, such as that it’s difficult to dump a vice president, even one, unlike Biden, whose approval ratings are in the tank. Dwight Eisenhower learned that in 1956, when he told Richard M. Nixon to “chart out his own course” with the gentle suggestion that Nixon might better fulfill his presidential ambitions by serving in a Cabinet position rather than remaining on the ticket. Eisenhower had suffered one disclosed heart attack, and misgivings about Nixon made him a campaign li- ability. But Nixon understood that the vice presiden- cy was his best springboard and stayed in place. Sixteen years later, Nixon wanted to jettison the in- ept Spiro T. Agnew to advance the presidential pros- pects of John Connally. Yet Agnew had become a hero of the Republican base, and Nixon opted to keep Ag- new rather than place any obstacle in his own path to a landslide reelection. In 1992, highly placed associates of the first Presi- dent Bush sought to replace Quayle with Colin Powell or someone else. Whereas Eisenhower and Nixon were headed to landslide reelections, Bush was in trouble. Yet Quayle enjoyed support from the Repub- lican base, had served Bush loyally and wasn’t the cause of Bush’s political troubles. Bush put the kibosh on their efforts. There are substantial costs to dumping a vice presi- dent absent extraordinary conditions. The president who drops a vice president is likely to upset his base, raise questions about his capacity for loyalty and ap- pear weak.


BY DANZIGER


don’t want to see my son end up like that,” said Rhonda Hart when we spoke by phone in May. Hart was referring to three teens


Drawing Board


KLMNO


K R


A13 In Iran,


standing up to persecution


by Roxana Saberi F BY MARGULIES FOR THE RECORD


or several weeks last year, I shared a cell in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison with Mah- vash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, two


leaders of Iran’s minority Bahai faith. I came to see them as my sisters, women whose only crimes were to peacefully practice their religion and resist pressure from their captors to compro- mise their principles. For this, apparently, they and five male colleagues were sentenced this month to 20 years in prison. I had heard about Mahvash and Fariba before I


met them. Other prisoners spoke of the two mid- dle-aged mothers whose high spirits lifted the morale of fellow inmates. The Bahai faith, thought to be the largest non-


Muslim minority religion in Iran, originated in 19th-century Persia. It is based on the belief that the world will one day attain peace and unity. Ira- nian authorities consider it a heretical offshoot of Islam. After I was transferred to their cell, I learned


BY LISA BENSON


that Mahvash had been incarcerated for one year and Fariba for eight months. Each had spent half her detention in solitary confinement, during which time they were allowed almost no contact with their families and only the Koran to read. Recently the two had been permitted to have a pen. Oh, how they cherished it! But they were al- lowed to use it only to do Sudoku and crossword puzzles in the conservative newspapers the pris- on guards occasionally gave them. Mahvash, Fariba and their five colleagues faced accusations that included spying for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and, later, “spread- ing corruption on earth.” All three could have re- sulted in the death penalty. The Bahais denied these charges. Far from posing a threat to the Islamic regime, Mahvash and Fariba told me, Iran’s estimated 300,000 Ba- hais are nonviolent and politically impartial. Despite the gravity of the accusations against them, Mahvash and Fariba had not once been al- lowed to see attorneys. Yet my cellmates’ spirits would not be broken, and they boosted mine. They taught me to, as they put it, turn challenges into opportunities — to make the most of diffi- cult situations and to grow from adversity. We kept a daily routine, reading the books we were eventually allowed and discussing them; exercis- ing in our small cell; and praying — they in their


The persecution of many Bahais includes being fired from jobs and denied access to higher education.


way, I in mine. They asked me to teach them Eng- lish and were eager to learn vocabulary for shop- ping, cooking and traveling. They would use the new words one day, they told me, when they jour- neyed abroad. But the two women also said they never wanted to live overseas. They felt it their duty to serve not only Bahais but all Iranians. Later, when I went on a hunger strike, Mah-


BY LISA BENSON


vash and Fariba washed my clothes by hand after I lost my energy and told me stories to keep my mind off my stomach. Their kindness and love gave me sustenance. It pained me to leave them behind when I was freed in May 2009. I later heard that Mahvash, Fariba and their colleagues refused to make false confessions, as many political prisoners in Iran are pressured to do. It was January when the Bahais’ trial began.


Obama has no political reason to dump Biden, who is not the source of the president’s problems. Obama’s issues stem from the economy and the administra- tion’s failure to convince the electorate of its accom- plishments. Some have argued that while Biden is not a drag on the ticket, he is also not able to produce the excite- ment Clinton would ignite. Although Clinton’s unique stature and the skill with which she has han- dled her Cabinet role are clear, she is not the solution to Obama’s perceived difficulties. Her popularity would probably suffer if she returned to a partisan role, and Obama would pay a price for removing Bi- den. Nor is there a governmental reason to change the


ticket. Biden has been one of the most consequential vice presidents in U.S. history. He has been an impor- tant presidential adviser who has sometimes con- structively challenged assumptions of other counsel- ors. He has capably handled the substantial domestic and foreign policy assignments Obama has given him. Far from the divisive figure some vice presidents have been, Biden has modeled civil discourse and bi- partisanship in an age when those values are vanish- ing. Unless Biden tires of his role, he’ll be the presi-


dent’s running mate in 2012. So instead of speculat- ing about something that’s not going to happen, let’s use our time more constructively to discuss the na- tion’s real problems. Or to watch “Casablanca.”


Joel K. Goldstein, a professor at Saint Louis University’s School of Law, is the author of “The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution.”


This month, the same Iranian judge who had sentenced me to eight years in prison on a false charge of spying for the United States sentenced the Bahais to 20 years. The charges they were convicted of have not yet been reported. Human rights advocates have said the trial was riddled with irregularities. The defendants were eventually allowed to see attorneys but only briefly. The lawyers were given only a few hours to examine the thousands of pages in the pros- ecution’s files. Early in the trial, state-run TV crews were present at what were supposed to be closed hearings. After the Bahais’ attorneys ob- jected, family members were allowed to attend the hearings, but foreign diplomats were barred, and the only journalists permitted were with state-run media. It appears that no evidence was presented against the defendants. As their lawyers appeal, Mahvash and Fariba sit in Rajai Shahr prison outside Tehran. Even Evin prison, cellmates told me last year, is prefer- able to Rajai Shahr. The facility is known for tor- ture, unsanitary conditions and inadequate med- ical care for inmates, who include murderers, drug addicts and thieves. While Iranian authorities deny that the regime discriminates against citizens for religious be- liefs, the Bahai faith is not recognized under the Iranian constitution. The known persecution of many Bahais includes being fired from jobs and denied access to higher education, as well as cemetery desecration. (The Bahais created their own unofficial university, which Mahvash used to direct; Fariba earned a degree in psychology there.) In addition to the seven leaders, 44 other Bahais are in prisons in Iran, the Baha’i Interna- tional Community reports. People of many nations and faiths have called for the release of the Bahai leaders. But many more must speak out — such as by signing letters of support through Web sites such as Unit- ed4Iran.com. Protests of these harsh sentences can make clear to authorities in Iran and else- where that they will be held accountable when they trample on human rights.Mahvash and Fa- riba occasionally hear news of this support, and it gives them strength to carry on, just as the international outcry against my imprisonment empowered me. I know that despite what they have been through and what lies ahead, these women feel no hatred in their hearts. When I struggled not to despise my interrogators and the judge, Mahvash and Fariba told me they do not hate anyone, not even their captors. We believe in love and compassion for human- ity, they said, even for those who wrong us.


Roxana Saberi, a journalist detained in Iran last year, is the author of "Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran."


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