President Calls for New 'Ethic of Personal Responsibility'
by JohnHuang2
July 10, 2002
Poor, poor Democrats. Small wonder they're in trouble.
The zinging tour-de-force the President delivered on Wall Street Tuesday, beyond co-opting yet another issue from struggling Democrats, proves this Texan meant business when he vowed to go after business -- phony business, that is.
On corporate reform, Bush is now center stage, "calling for a new ethic of personal responsibility."
Terry McAuliff must be flailing in pain.
Cleaning up the mess Clinton left behind is full time work, that much we've learned in the 17 months of this administration. Fixing the problems of Wall Street is part of the clean up.
But it's more than that.
To Bush, the 90s were reckless, a decade of impetuous irresponsibility, of unbridled license, a moral black hole for ethics, a contra bonos mores era run amok. In this crucible, corruption was 'in', integrity, 'out'.
But the tone was set at the top.
As the prince of sleaze, Clinton was the Zeitgeist of that era.
On many levels, the Clinton poison infected the culture, the ethos, the mores of the 90s. Things permissible -- indeed, rewarded -- while Clinton was "president", were unthinkable under Reagan.
Wall Street would not be immune. The harum-scarum emphasis on the bottom line, even to the point of fraud -- consequences be damned -- was the Clinton Doctrine applied in the boardroom.
Lying, cheating, stealing, bilking, conning, duping, fleecing, thieving -- who gives a rip?!. Get yours while the gettin' is good.
Just don't get caught.
That's the Clinton Doctrine.
Bush's speech yesterday was a watershed.
Message: The Clinton era is over. Washington -- there's a new Sheriff in town.
"The lure of heady profits of the late 1990s spawned abuses and excesses", said Bush. "With strict enforcement and higher ethical standards, we must usher in a new era of integrity in corporate America."
Window dressing?
Hardly.
The President announced a special task force to hunt down corporate wrong-doers and challenged the U.S. Sentencing Commission to urge stiffer jail terms for these miscreants.
He challenged Congress to get off the dime, calling for stronger laws against document shredding, doubling prison terms for wire and mail fraud to 10 years.
To put teeth into the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bush called for 100 additional enforcement officers and $100 million more for the SEC budget.
Here's a dirty little secret: To squeeze yet more mileage from corporate fraud politically, Democrats quietly hoped Bush's drive for reform would fall far short of criminal sanctions for wrongdoers.
Democrats still don't 'get it'. On Bush, they're clueless, utterly addled and befuddled.
To this President, the first MBA in the White House, the scandals on Wall Street are morally appalling.
Bush: "These scandals have hurt the reputations of many good and honest companies. They have hurt the stock market. And worst of all, they are hurting millions of people who depend on the integrity of businesses for their livelihood and their retirement, for their peace of mind and their financial well-being."
As a respectable member of the business community himself, George W. Bush takes umbrage at the sleazeballs and scammers tarnishing the community as a whole in the eyes of the public. As a man of unquestioned integrity and decorum, Bush is bound and determined to bring these criminals to justice, to restore public confidence in corporate America, to bring probity, honesty, decency back to the boardroom.
To Bush, integrity isn't a handicap, it's the key to excellency in business. A fervent believer in free enterprise, he knows free markets can not long survive amid a crisis of confidence, a climate of investor cynicism.
Bush aims to end this crisis, and he will -- by putting corporate criminals in leg-irons, in orange jump suits. Under this administration, these scumbags are going to prison, and will stay in the pokey for a very, very long time, too.
Bush: "With strict enforcement and higher ethical standards, we must usher in a new era of integrity in Corporate America. In the end, there is no capitalism without conscience, no wealth without character."
Democrats, in contrast, see corporate sleaze as campaign fodder -- an issue to exploit politically.
For Bush, it's a moral issue -- a question of right and wrong.
Democrats could care less about corporate wrongdoing, per se.
Eh?
That's right. Oh, they posture and handwring endlessly over Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Qwest and Global Crossing. But political advantage is really what they're after -- capitalizing on what they wrongly perceive as vulnerabilities for Bush.
Rather than reaping political windfall, Democrats instead are in quite a pickle. By failing to act aggressively enough against corporate wrongdoing, Clinton allowed it to flourish. Indeed, by forestalling enforcement actions by his SEC, Clinton reaped the rewards -- campaign largess from corporate executives grateful to Clinton for keeping regulators off their backs.
Dittos the Reno "Justice" Department. On Clinton's watch, it was AWOL.
Small wonder Americans lay responsibility for the torrent of sleaze rocking Wall Street directly at Clinton's feet, much to the bitter chagrin of the media and Democrats who have feverishly sought to shield X42 from questions over his role as the book-cooking burgeoned while he was "president."
In the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, 51% of Americans say Clinton is "at least partially responsible ... because of the climate he set in office with his moral failings."
Haunted by the ghost of Clinton past, Democrats and WorldCom share startling similarities:
1) Both are battling to avoid bankruptcy; For Democrats, it's political bankruptcy; For WorldCom, it's financial bankruptcy.
2) Both are champions at cooking the books. Democrats, through cut outs, concealed millions of illegal campaign donations from abroad. WorldCom listed nearly $4 billion in expenses as capital outlays.
3) Neither of the two possess a modicum of ethics -- not a scrap of basic morality.
Nor care that they don't.
And while Democrats and their media puppets have done their damndest to link the President with corporate sleaze -- indeed, they've smeared him as a crook and a criminal himself -- polls show their efforts have mostly boomeranged.
Despite politically motivated, coordinated Democrat/media slander, Americans overwhelmingly give President Bush the moral high ground on this issue.
Week after week, month after month, this President has been libeled, maligned, denigrated, disparaged, vilified, impugned, defamed. He's been pummelled with every ugly name in the book.
The Bush-haters spared no effort to bring down the President.
Yet, all was for naught.
Indeed, their hateful vendetta conflicts with their goal of assassinating the President politically. While Democrats thought they saw a chance to tar Bush with the WorldCom brush, 64% of Americans believe "big business has too much influence on" Democrats in Congress, again according to Gallup. While the President gets similar numbers, the survey puts the lie to media claims that Democrats have a built-in political advantage to press.
Moreover, on questions of morals and ethics, this Presidents continues to garner exceptionally high marks.
On issue after issue, the Democrat disconnect is staggering.
Democrats desire a crippled President, even while the country is at war; Americans pray for Bush to stay strong.
Democrats would love to see a double-dip recession; Americans are optimistic on the future.
While Democrats try to undercut public morale, and undermine resolve, Americans overwhelmingly bond with the President; on matters of security, they trust him immensely.
Having failed to dent Bush's popularity, and with midterm elections looming ominously, Democrats are reduced to recycling inane "questions" over 10-year old stock deals at Harken Energy, where Bush was a director. For years, campaign opponents of the President have beaten the Harken drum, to no avail. The SEC investigated Bush ad nauseam, but found no evidence of impropriety.
But the haters aren't about to let niggling facts stand in their way. Senator Daschle, appearing on CBS's Face the Nation, continued to level vicious attacks, insinuating criminal wrongdoing on Bush's part.
Never mind that Linda Hall Daschle, his wife, moved from airline lobbyist to acting administrator of the FAA, then left FAA to resume lobbying for the airlines. Her clients included some of the biggest government contractors in the airline industry.
Nuff said.
Yet, for all the sniping, all the slander, all the insults -- the fierce torrent of hate, bitter Democrats have zip, zero, nada to show for.
A whopping 76% approve of Bush's job performance, according to Gallup, and 65% are confident Bush will take corporate miscreants to the cleaners.
No more fuzzy ethics, no more fuzzy math. There is, indeed, a new Sheriff in town, Oh Democrats, and he's aiming to stay in your face.
So get over it.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
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