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

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (34747)	9/5/2000 1:33:47 PM
From: DMaA	Respond to of 769667

Funny you should bring that up. A contest to predict Clinton's October Surprise: October Surprise Predict what Clinton will do to influence the November election. Tuesday, September 5, 2000 12:01 a.m. EDT What will be Bill Clinton's "October Surprise"? That is, just how will Mr. Clinton use his powers as President to shape events advancing the electoral cause of his vice president as his successor and his wife as senator from New York? OpinionJournal readers are invited to guess what that surprise might be; the 10 best entries, selected by the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, will win one-year subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal Online. The phrase "October Surprise" seems to have been invented by George Bush père. On Oct. 2, 1980, at a campaign appearance in Eugene, Ore., Mr. Bush warned that President Carter, then struggling in an ultimately unsuccessful re-election campaign, might spring such a surprise. "When you are a president, you have an ability to shape things to some degree," said Ronald Reagan's running mate. In 1991 Gary Sick, a Carter administration official in the National Security Council, published a New York Times op-ed piece, and later a book titled "October Surprise," in which he claimed that "individuals associated with the Reagan-Bush campaign of 1980 met secretly with Iranian officials to delay the release of the American hostages until after the Presidential election." Bipartisan congressional investigations found no credible evidence to support Mr. Sick's allegations--but the results weren't made public until after the 1992 election, thus avoiding an October Surprise that might have helped Mr. Bush in his re-election bid. The term "October Surprise" has become an American political cliché, applied, among other things, to Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's indictment of Caspar Weinberger in October 1992, Ross Perot's re-entry into the campaign the same month, and Lyndon Johnson's last-minute Vietnam peace efforts in 1968, which columnist William Safire retroactively dubbed an "October Surprise" in 1991. Just this Sept. 3, onetime independent counsel Michael Zeldin, in a Washington Post op-ed criticizing current independent counsel Robert Ray for appointing a new grand jury to hear evidence against President Clinton, declared: "I would hope we are not in for an October Surprise." In the strictest sense, though, the phrase applies to how a President can use his powers to make things happen, but with electoral impact in mind. For the OpinionJournal October Surprise contest, we'll start things following with three predictions from among our own ranks. We'll post new entries from readers every night at midnight, with the contest closing Sept. 30. We'll judge entries on the basis of their overall insight and persuasiveness, though of course it doesn't hurt if your prediction comes true. We'll announce the result, and reprint the winning entries, shortly after the election. As always, we reserve the right not to post all entries, and also to edit entries for length, clarity and taste. Entries must include a real name and e-mail address. And now--let the games begin! opinionjournal.com

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (34747)	9/6/2000 1:45:34 AM
From: Mr. Whist	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

This is NOT flapjack posting here. It is his pal, Mr. Butterworth. Longtime reader, first-time poster. Flapjack gave me his SI sign-on and password and asked me to do a favor for him. Flapjack is on the road. He is en route to Larry Flynt's log cabin in the hills of Kentucky, where the two will discuss a permanent home for the GOP Hall of Shame. In any event, flapjack asked me to pass on the following to all those "right-wing nuts" (his term, not mine) who savagely attacked him today simply for sport and who failed to expand the horizons of knowledge (even a little). He specifically mentioned e-Mr. Bill, prolife, ishkabibble, Capt. K (kvkkc), JBC, Southerly Brees, Snake Eyes, DNA, neoconagra and J1Allen-Wrench. I'm not quite sure what flapjack meant by the following, but he said all of the above behaved at times today like "pejoratives associated with the conclusion of an alimentary canal. " In any event, please don't bother responding. I'm just the messenger. Don't shoot me! Ha ha. -- Mr. Butterworth