January 18, 2001
Washington's Guessing Game
Editorial from The New York Times
January 18, 2001
Official Washington seems a little
confused these days. President Clinton's
long goodbye and President-elect George W.
Bush's truncated transition seem to have
dampened the anticipatory mood that usually
grips the capital before an inauguration. Perhaps things will perk up a bit
now that Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, are in town. A city that loves its
history will also be glad to see former President George H. W. Bush. As
the younger Mr. Bush remarked, this inauguration will be the first since
1961 in which a father has watched his son take the oath. It will also be,
of course, just the second time in the nation's history that the son of a
former president has achieved the same office.
But history is not the only thing that matters to Washington. There is also
the forward-looking local sport of sizing up the new leader. On that
score, a subdued puzzlement reigns on Capitol Hill. Not since Ronald
Reagan's advent in 1981 has there been deeper curiosity over how a new
chief executive will govern and what he really wants. And it does not take
a lot of snooping around to discover that Republicans and Democrats
alike are beginning to suspect that President-elect Bush is far more
conservative than either side suspected during the campaign
Based on his cabinet appointments, his advocacy of a big, regressive tax
cut and his initial statements on foreign relations, the president-elect now
stands closer ideologically to Mr. Reagan than to his own father. For
example, Congressional Democrats are being told that Mr. Bush does
not like the idea of making his $1.6 trillion tax cut fairer by aiming it at
payroll taxes that workers pay. Such targeting would give a much quicker
boost to the flagging consumer economy than income tax reductions that
will take two or more years to take effect. But Mr. Bush seems
instinctively drawn to the classic conservative agenda of trimming high
marginal rates, capital gains and estate taxes.
If Mr. Bush does turn out to be as aggressive as he now appears on, say,
limiting federal support for abortion rights, building a missile defense
system and giving the extractive industries wider access to federal lands,
several questions will arise. Did the news media and his debate
opponents interrogate him with sufficient energy on his core ideology?
Did Mr. Bush knowingly disguise himself as a standard- issue suburban
moderate, or did he simply luck into having John McCain line up on his
left and Steve Forbes on his right during the Republican primaries?
Democrats on Capitol Hill are beginning to consider another theory. In
this view, Mr. Bush really did start out as a moderate, but has leapt to the
right because his advisers have concluded that the closeness of the
election was due to his failure to bond with the most zealous part of the
G.O.P. base.
Perhaps this is a good time to remember that a new president sometimes
takes a while to discover, or invent, his essential governing persona. Part
of the excitement of the Clinton years lay in watching Mr. Clinton define
exactly what third-way Democratic politics amounted to. In the
campaign, Mr. Bush's speeches stirred the expectation that he wanted to
invent a new, distinctive kind of Republicanism, consistent with the
party's past but capable of really delivering on the kinder, gentler part of
his father's vision.
Yesterday, in a farewell speech in Texas, Mr. Bush returned to the
inclusive language of respect and cooperation. He is expected to repeat
those themes in his inaugural address. But words alone cannot solve the
policy puzzle being played out in the nation's capital, because so far, the
message beamed from Austin to Washington has been stark and familiar.
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