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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (14207)	3/6/2000 10:37:00 AM
From: Brian P.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

Bill Safire totally NAILS it!!! Slam-dunk!! You can shut down this board now--this is the post to end all posts!! (vbg) March 6, 2000 ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE Turnout Will Decide Cringing in the spotlight placed on his university's racism by John McCain, Bob Jones III has just announced a reversal of his dating policy: henceforth, a white student can buy a soda for an Asian student without being expelled. How's that for tangible results from McCain, the real reformer? One day the extremist who provided the Bush campaign launchpad may even stop teaching -- as he still does today -- that Catholicism is a "frightening cult." Meanwhile, in California, Ohio and New York, "Wyly Coyote" struck with a last-minute TV smear. The Wyly brothers have been two of Bush's biggest Texas fat cats and overnight guests, and the Wyly family secretly put up $2.5 million in soft money to mislead voters about McCain's clean-air record. Bush professes total ignorance of his cronies' pollution of the airwaves -- but never tells them to stop. How's that for proof positive of the need for McCain's campaign finance reform? When financiers who make millions running University of Texas investments deliver a last-minute low blow from ambush, they make the case for stopping such hidden money's corruption of our politics. On Long Island, when informed that suburban Republican women were unimpressed by orders from the Pataki machine to support the bosses' choice, Bush approved what hardball connoisseurs will remember as his "breast cancer deception." In that too-cute trick, Bush staged an event and had a woman cut a spot that all but implied McCain was soft on cancer. The falsification of McCain's long record supporting breast cancer research relied on the sly selection of a couple of principled McCain votes against unexamined, uncompetitive Federal spending. When informed that McCain's sister, a breast cancer victim herself, called such a cruel charge "absurd," Bush showed the same insensitivity he displayed toward David Letterman's heart operation. "All the more reason to remind him," he shot back -- causing Long Island Republican Representative Peter King to marvel at the Texan's "heart of stone." Every political pro knows that Bush's callous exploitation of women's concern about breast cancer is a card off the bottom of the deck, but worried people bombarded with that official campaign spot might be fooled. Similarly, environmentalists know that while pollution in Bush's Houston and Dallas has worsened, McCain's clean-air record is sound -- but many viewers of Wyly Coyote's $2.5 million mudslinging ad campaign will be deceived. What does this pattern of soft-money deception and hard-money half-truth tell us about the Bush campaign? It tells us, first, that it is sore about being caught and exposed as beholden to Pat Robertson and other "agents of intolerance" for its salvation. Bush reacted to the public reaction against the extremists by showing high dudgeon at being held responsible for his chosen bedfellows. As a result, he hardened his attitude of "anything it takes to win the nomination." That is sad for Republicans to see. Many of us had hoped that lively primary competition would awaken a complacent candidacy and prepare whoever won for one-on-one debates with the formidable Al Gore. Surely it woke up Bush and improved his style in crowds. But as the Wyly Coyote and breast cancer tricks show, early adversity toughened rather than strengthened his strategy, losing independent voters. He has shied away from the necessary one-on-one debate preparation, lately using Alan Keyes as his buffer, yesterday ducking the longstanding invitation of "Meet the Press" to debate his chief opponent only. Worse, by mounting the soft-money tiger, Bush -- if he becomes the candidate -- gives cover to the sort of smashmouth campaign that the Democrats perfected in stealing the 1996 election. Envision Al Gore, hand reverently over his heart, swearing no knowledge of his supporters' huge buys of late-campaign blasts. Democrats are gleeful at the prospect of ameliorating Gore's Buddhist temple scandal by exposing the soft-money chicanery of the Bush fat cats and religious extremists. Such an "everybody does it" defense would collapse against McCain's withering attack and reformist credibility. Turnout's the key. The popular vote in California may again confound the pollsters.