GORE: THE CHARACTER ISSUE
Friday,October 20,2000
It is time to examine the principal issue in this year's presidential race:
character.
The coming election rests on voters' concerns about the honesty, integrity
and moral conduct of public officials.
Al Gore has tried his best to keep this issue hidden.
He's tried to change the subject.
"You may want to focus on scandals," the veep said, responding to a
question about character during his first debate with Gov. George W.
Bush. "I want to focus on results."
No doubt.
If you were in Gore's shoes, you'd avoid talking about scandals, too.
Yet, come Nov. 7, voters will say loud and clear whether eight years of
Clinton-Gore shenanigans are an issue.
They'll say whether it's OK to flout the law - as Al Gore has done
repeatedly - on fund-raising.
Or whether it's permissible to lie to the American people. Repeatedly.
And, especially, if it's a veep's duty to proudly back his boss - as the
president swims in a moral sewer.
Little White Lies
More than anything, Al Gore's campaign has been about lies.
He's the serial exaggerator, the political Pinocchio, the frequent fibber, the
king of the whoppers.
The little lies stretch from the Internet to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
There's his shaggy dog tale; "Love Story"; embellishments about his time
in Vietnam; the deskless student, the Texas fires ...
There are the fibs about co-sponsoring the McCain-Feingold bill and
authoring the Earned Income Tax Credit. In one truly strange yarn, Gore
recalled a famous union song sung to him as a baby - even though it wasn't
written until he was 27 years old!
More troubling are his lies about not knowing the Buddhist temple event
was a fund-raiser; recalling that he attended only one White House coffee
(he appeared at 23), and that fund-raising phone calls from the White
House were governed by "no controlling legal authority."
How has Gore reacted to charges that he lies? By thumbing his
ever-growing nose at the public. Just this week he tossed off another
blooper.
"The big drug companies are now spending more money on advertising
and promotion ... than they are on research and development," Gore said.
According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which researches
health-care issues, drug companies in fact spent more on research than
marketing: Some $2.50 went for R&D for every $1 spent on marketing in
1998.
Bigger Bloopers
Gore has gotten a lot of mileage out of his ability to toss out factoids.
But how hard can it be when you're not constrained by the truth?
Still, the master of details dismisses his lies as merely "getting the details
wrong." He promises not to do it again.
Thus, some folks might be tempted to dismiss these lapses as simply
little white lies.
Yet, forgiving them becomes harder when you realize that Gore's entire
political outlook is based on falsehoods.
And big ones.
Take his "wealthiest 1 percent" whopper.
Bush doesn't propose to spend "half" the surplus on this group, as Gore
says.
Not even close.
What Bush is suggesting is that taxpayers at every level pay less in taxes
than they do now.
And Gore seeks to exclude millions of taxpayers altogether - by dividing
Americans into the "deserving us" and the "undeserving them."
This is not just a little white lie; it's a falsehood that informs his entire
campaign.
Credibility Gap
Nor are Gore's credibility problems limited to fudging the facts.
He also lies about what he stands for.
Remember his warning to Hollywood producers to clean up their act - or,
if elected, he'd sic the feds on them?
It took mere hours for Gore and Sen. Joe Lieberman to back off that
threat. They just winked to the industry: Don't worry, Gore and
Lieberman said, we'll never censor you. Just keep that campaign cash
coming.
Gore has flip-flopped on gun control, abortion, the nuclear test ban,
tobacco. In 1992, as a senator, he co-sponsored a law to curb Russian
arms sales to Iran. Three years later, as veep, he signed a secret pact to
permit those sales - so secret that even Congress was meant to be kept
out of the loop.
Just what does this man stand for?
The only principle Gore seems to have is his commitment to Al Gore.
So Long, Ethics
Ironic - indeed, downright comical - is Gore's current call for
campaign-finance reform.
That's because the Clinton-Gore years have been marked by open con-
tempt for existing fund-raising law.
Happily for the vice president, a compliant Attorney General Janet Reno
made sure no serious legal action would be taken by the government.
Did the Chinese buy the 1996 election? Did they get banned high-tech
goodies, courtesy of an indebted White House? Did Gore solicit money
from trial lawyers in exchange for a veto on tort reform?
Reno's response: Let's not go there.
And what about those Lincoln Bedroom rentals and the joy-rides on Air
Force One? The abuses go on and on.
Don't for a minute think Gore wasn't personally involved in all the
fund-raising hanky-panky.
Gore attended the illegal White House coffee klatches, made "no
controlling legal authority" phone calls, hosted the Buddhist temple
fund-raiser.
Then he lied about all of them.
Oh, and Gore says he was in the bathroom during campaign-finance
planning? Puh-leeze.
Toeing
the Line
Finally, there is the very legitimate matter of Gore's views on President
Clinton.
Legitimate, because it raises the question of Gore's judgment and values.
Sure, a vice president must back his boss, toe the party line.
But doesn't there come a point when a veep must step up and say, "Wait
a minute - this is wrong"?
Gore saw nothing out of line with the unethical - and illegal - habits of his
party and administration.
He thought nothing of Clinton's own misdeeds - until, of course, Clinton
himself was forced to 'fess up.
Clinton had shamed the nation and sullied the office of the presidency.
Yet to Gore's mind, Clinton "will be regarded in the history books as one
of our greatest presidents."
Has Gore no scruples at all?
Apparently not.
The Fix
To be sure, Gore knows that some voters, at least, will hold him
accountable for his absent ethics.
That's why he chose Lieberman as his running mate.
But Gore fell short on even that attempt.
Rather than allowing himself to be purified by Lieberman, Gore simply
infected the senator - forcing him to disavow the principled positions (on
affirmative action, vouchers, Social Security privatization) that were
responsible for his sterling reputation.
Presently it will be the voters' turn.
America will see soon enough whether or not morals matter.
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