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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JRI who wrote (210581)	12/19/2002 12:33:42 AM
From: NOW	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

"He Who Sells What Isn't His'n Must Buy it Back or Go to Pris'n." --"Uncle Dan'l" Drew

To: JRI who wrote (210581)	12/19/2002 1:31:11 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

A Teflon Bush By Robert Kuttner Columnist The Boston Globe 12/18/2002 THIS MONTH has produced the worst spate of overreach and poor judgment from the Bush administration since the bullying of Senator Jim Jeffords caused him to bolt the GOP and briefly deliver the Senate to the Democrats. But, inept or not, President Bush just seems swaddled in Teflon. Consider: The economic bungle. Bush abruptly fired his economic team to build economic confidence. But he replaced it with a new team whose most notable qualifications are that they oppose Bush's economic program. Paul O'Neill, the departing Treasury secretary, was widely considered too blunt and undiplomatic. He managed to roil foreign currency markets with casual comments. An old-line industrialist, he provided little reassurance to Wall Street. Worst of all, he publicly disparaged Bush's plans for a big new tax cut. Apparently Vice President Cheney advised O'Neill that the White House planned to replace him next year but asked him to stay on until a successor could be named. O'Neill got angry and resigned. The White House then fired Larry Lindsey, chairman of the National Economic Council. Lindsey's head had not been on the block. But by sacking Lindsey, too, the president could make O'Neill's ouster seem part of a deliberate plan. For Treasury secretary, the White House came up with John Snow, another old-line industrial CEO critical of Bush's budget-busting tax cuts. To replace Lindsey, it recruited Stephen Friedman, a Wall Streeter who is also a leader of the Concord Coalition, the bipartisan lobby for balanced budgets. Supply-siders initially had fits. But evidently these deficit hawks have checked their true views at the door. The financial press treated the whole affair as no big deal. The Kissinger caper. A lot of people found it odd that Henry Kissinger, master of the coverup, would be appointed to chair a commission charged with uncovering why the United States was so woefully unprepared for 9/11. Kissinger managed to stand up to that criticism. It was only when pressed to disclose his client list that he renounced the post. The man is 79. Since leaving government, Kissinger has become a millionaire many times over, trading on the contacts he made as national security adviser and secretary of state. You might think the old reprobate had enough money and power and might welcome one last chance to serve. Nope. Here again, Bush gets off with scant criticism, either for appointing Kissinger in the first place or for Kissinger's grubby manner of blowing off the honor. Instead, Bush looks statesmanlike for producing Tom Kean, a former New Jersey governor who really is the conciliatory bipartisan moderate that Bush claimed to be. Segregation forever. Ever since Richard Nixon's famed Southern strategy, the Republican Party has tried to have things both ways on race. It has coddled the most vicious racists within its ranks, opposed affirmative action using the rhetoric of antidiscrimination, employed ''ballot security'' programs to hold down black voting, and slashed social outlays that benefit minorities. All the while, the party displayed token black conservatives and invoked Lincoln whenever it was convenient. Even if the press bought the new supposed GOP moderation, white Southern Republicans knew the real game. This careful balancing act has been obliterated by Trent Lott. The incoming Senate majority leader blurted out what he really believes and has long practiced: Good old boys like himself would indeed have had far fewer ''problems'' if Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Helped by high-profile black appointees such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and by Bush's own bogus rhetoric of compassion, Republicans had begun to attract black voter support. This could quickly evaporate. After dithering for days, the White House belatedly put some distance between the president and his Senate leader. The latest leaks say the White House wants Lott out. But just who is the White House, anyway? Karl Rove? Dick Cheney? Maybe George W. Bush? In a few short weeks, the schism between Republican budget balancers and tax cutters has been exposed, Lott has spoiled the Republican dissembling on race, and the long-delayed commission on 9/11 had a false start. If the Democrats had committed one such stumble after another, there would be catcalls from the press galleries. Lott may yet be sacrificed. Kissinger has gone back to his clients. Nobody much minds the Treasury shuffle as long as the tax cutters have the votes. And Bush just floats above it all, the leader who can do no wrong. _______________________________________________ Robert Kuttner's is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe. © Copyright 2002 Boston Globe Newspaper Company.