Bush Cancels Event After Heath Ledger's Death

WASHINGTON — The death of Heath Ledger prompted the White House to postpone President Bush's event Wednesday promoting an ad campaign aimed at preventing prescription drug abuse.

Ledger, 28, who was nominated for an Oscar for "Brokeback Mountain," was found dead Tuesday in his New York apartment. There were sleeping pills near him, but the cause of his death remains under investigation.

Read more here.

Read here for more HuffPost coverage of Heath Ledger's death.

The president was to make a statement in the Roosevelt Room on the Office of National Drug Control Policy's television advertisement about preventing prescription drug abuse. A federally financed study released in December at the White House showed illicit drug use by teens continued to gradually decline overall this year, but the use of prescription painkillers remained popular among young people.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush's event had been scheduled for a while.

"We thought it would be better to postpone the event rather than run the risk of anyone thinking that we were being opportunistic in highlighting the issue," she said.

Comments

[Grunty1]

There is only one good thing about this: if BUSH (a non-recovered drug addict of all people...) started a campaign to reduce drug usage, half the teenagers in the country would be dead within a month...

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

If the roles had been reversed, would Mr. Ledger have pulled the ad?

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Any excuse to pull a campaign Big Pharma wanted pulled anyway.

[KoolBreez]

"...rather than run the risk of anyone thinking that we were being opportunistic.."

He, he he .When has that stopped you before..

[Mike169]

You think he'd cancel the Iraq War over soldiers' deaths?

[MrWampler]

The death of an actor prompts Bush to postpone an event. Yet two planes flying into WTC could not postpone his photo-op in that kindergarten class?

[wilburbudd]

Another Star-struck idiot, that Bush...
WHO CARES??? I FEEL FOR HEATH'S FAMILY, AND HIM, BUT HE WAS AN ACTOR, A CELEBRITY, another vastly over paid phoney taking time and attention away from the far more important things in this life.
Get the f**k over it, for Christ's sake, and move on to things THAT MATTER!!!!!!!
(Just how sure are we, anyway, Georgie didn't have him offed so he wouldn't have to make that speech? Now THAT I might give a damn about.)

[doinaheckofajob]

Too bad the circumstances are not reversed.

[supergranny]

Weird, look at those 2 photos side by side. Notice the facial structures are almost identical between Bush & Ledger?

[MotherWarrior]

As the parent of a child who is a recovering drug addict (see my blog on adolescent addiction issues at motherwarriors.blogspot.com), I don't understand why Bush would not take every opportunity to inform and educate the American people about drug abuse, prescription or otherwise. I think he made a ridiculous decision and that as usual his handlers are more interested in manipulating the public than in helping the country. I don't believe in the sincerity of anything he says anyway, but he might have delivered a message that could hve helped parents be on alert for signs of prescription drug abuse.

[nicho]

The Bush Crime Family doesn't want to be opportunistic? Give me a freaking break.

They probably did it because Heath and Laura used the same dealer.

[gcallaghan]

This is all part of Bush's legacy building. Because of this, when he's out of office he believes people will remember him as a caring leader and forget the little stuff like Katrina, illegal wars, pillaging the country and disassembling our democracy.

[PatA]

Well, my Lordy, we sure wouldn't want to think that Bush would seize an "opportunity to be opportuninistic", now would we?

[TheDebbieDee]

So, let me get this straight...... pResident * can stay on vacation, go to somebody's birthday party and play air guitar as a US city full of poor people drown.

But he cancels the kick-off for a campaign to prevent prescription drug overmedication because Heath Ledger died?

This doesn't pass the SMELL test for me.....

[blueinannarbor]

Sensitivity from this white house and the republican party? Yeah, right. Sandpaper on a baby's ass is sensitive, too.