Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Unsafe at Any Speed

Monday, May 7, 2001

Eye-catching analyses of President George W. Bush over the weekend: One by Dan Balz of the Washington Post, one by Richard Stevenson of the New York Times and, one by Bill Clinton.

The Post article pointed out the scope and scale of the programs the Bush Administration is developing and announcing "whose ambitiousness," according to Balz, "belies the narrowness of the victory that brought him to the White House."

The Times piece started with these words, "President Bush as the conservative ideologue had a pretty good week." A paragraph later, Stevenson wrote, "President Bush the bipartisan conciliator had a pretty good week, too."

Maybe President Bush is not applying the kinds of artificial ideological benchmarks with which professional Administration Watchers are comfortable, but is taking things issue-by-issue and deciding on what is best for America.

Rick Berke, writing in the NY Times on Friday, interviewed a number of Clinton pals for insights into the former President's thinking about the his successor: "Mr. Clinton has told friends and associates that he thinks Mr. Bush is a formidable politician and far shrewder than many Democrats credit him with being."

This story was not an accident. The Democrats, hurting for funds, are laying the groundwork for featuring Bill Clinton at party fundraisers. Having Clinton say nice things about Bush at the front end will, in their estimation, soften the expected (and well deserved) criticism when he turns sharply negative in speeches to the party faithful.

In his regular weekly roundup with Scott Simon of NPR's Weekend Edition, long-time CBS reporter and current National Public Radio senior news analyst, Daniel Schorr patiently explained the standard, and accepted method of government budgeting: Look at all the problems to be solved; design the government programs necessary to solve them, add up how much all that is going to cost, subtract that from the expected tax revenues, and then - and ONLY then - if there is any money left over, think about a tax cut.

Mr. Schorr did not sound particularly doctrinaire, he was stating this as simple fact.

This Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress, according to Mr. Schorr, is doing it backwards: Giving a tax cut and then growing the government by only enough to fit within the revised income estimates.

Links to the articles noted above, other photos, Catchy Caption of the Day, all on the Secret Decoder Ring page here:

Speaking of Democratic fundraising, watch for the mail to flow out of national party headquarters pointing out the fact that former executive director of the Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Georgia.

Let's look at what the Christian Coalition did under Ralph's direction:
-- Became a huge force in American politics;
-- Used thousands of volunteers to identify and turn out supportive voters;
-- Provided information via pamphlets, mailings, phone calls, radio
and television ads;
-- Clearly - dramatically - spelled out the differences between candidates
and warned about the dire consequences of the other side winning;
-- Energized tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of individuals to vote.

All of which, by the way, was - and is - also being done by Big Labor. But somehow, the Christian Coalition was bad for politics; labor unions are good.

The only real difference between what the labor unions have done and what the Christian Coaltion did was this: The Christian Coalition had to raise it's money from people who wanted to give; the labor unions are allowed to take it from workers whether they want to give or not.

Friday was "Bike-to-Work Day" in the People's Republic of Alexandria, Virginia. Coffee and snacks were available on the plaza at City Hall which, unfortunately, did nothing to stop a disappointingly large number of fat white guys in spandex shorts from standing in line, doing obscene stretching exercises (to keep their keenly honed muscles supple), at the Starbucks.

Wanting to be a good citizen, but hampered by the fact I work out of my den, I schlepped my bike to the upstairs landing, carefully turned it around so as not to put black tire marks on the wall (which would have drawn the absolutely unwanted attention of the MDofS&P), bounced down the stairs and tried to make the sharp left turn into the den.

Having previously opened the front door to get the paper I, instead, shot out of the house, down the three levels of the front stoop, wobbled across the street and came skidding to a rest against my neighbor's big green garbage container, thrilled at having done my part to solve the energy crisis in California.

-- END --
Copyright © 2001 Richard A. Galen

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