From an Atlanta Constitution editorial by Cynthia Tucker
-----
Bush's minions have engaged in incendiary
rhetoric, accusing the Gore camp of trying to
"steal" the election and calling election
officials "thugs." They have denounced and
tried to discredit the courts when they didn't
rule the GOP's way. And in one astonishing
episode, a Republican mob verbally attacked
and intimated a group of low-level
functionaries trying to hand recount ballots in
Miami-Dade.
By the way, that scene of well-heeled young
conservatives engaged in a near-riot bore the
imprimatur of House Majority Whip Tom
DeLay, among the scary GOP contingent that
Bush tried to keep hidden during the
campaign. DeLay and other Republican
congressional leaders -- realizing that they
couldn't expect many legitimate voters in
heavily Democratic Miami-Dade to rally to their
cause -- offered their aides airfare, hotels and
meals if they would fly down to Florida to
cause trouble. Indeed, they were thrilled for
the opportunity to use their peculiar talents.
One GOP operative told The Wall Street
Journal: "Once word leaked out, everybody
wanted in."
Perhaps Bush's resort to such tactics
shouldn't come as a surprise -- his mantra
about being a "uniter, not a divider"
notwithstanding. When he was under
pressure from U.S. Sen. John McCain of
Arizona during the Republican primaries,
Bush allowed his minions to resort to the
worst kinds of dirty tricks. Bush surrogates
went so far as to suggest McCain sold out to
the Communists in Vietnam and to smear his
9-year-old adopted Bangladeshi daughter.
Bush ought to know better. He should have
learned from the late Lee Atwater, a South Carolina native who used
scorched-earth tactics to win the presidency for the governor's father,
George H.W. Bush. In a death-bed confessional written for Life
magazine, Atwater, who died of cancer in 1991, spoke with deep
regret of the bitter war he waged against Michael Dukakis, the
Democratic nominee.
"In 1988, fighting Dukakis, I said that I 'would strip the bark off the little
bastard' and 'make Willie Horton his running mate.' I am sorry for both
statements: the first for its naked cruelty, the second because it makes
me sound racist, which I am not.
"Mostly I am sorry for the way I thought of other people. Like a good
general, I had treated everyone who wasn't with me as against me."
That's the least of it. The Bush camp is treating the opposition as
illegitimate, un-American, thieves. And, if Bush assumes the White
House, Gore's supporters -- about half of America -- won't easily forget
it. If he wins (and the clock seems to favor Bush at the moment), he's
in for a rocky road.
They say the governor doesn't read much, but he ought to go back
and take a look at Atwater's dying words. It is too late for Bush to
reclaim the mantle of "uniter, not a divider;" he has long since given
the lie to that. But it may not be too late for him to reclaim his soul.
from: accessatlanta.com@issue/constitution/tucker/120300.html |
