A couple of weeks ago Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle launched the Democratic attack on President George W. Bush with a speech in Washington in which he blamed the "Bush Recession" on the "Bush tax cuts."
Sidebar: A seatmate on Friday told me he had been in a meeting where that Daschle speech was the topic of conversation. "Address," said one person, "not speech." "And he used a TelePrompTer," said another, "not notes."
All right. New rule. If you quote from Mullings you have to CITE Mullings!
End Sidebar.
Other Democratic leaders:
Were perfectly happy to let Daschle float that trial balloon; while they,
Wrapped the balloon's string around Daschle's wrist, tied it in a double knot, and then spent the past week;
Gleefully waving bye-bye to Daschle's Presidential aspirations as he floats away.
Here's why:
A Gallup poll taken last week shows that, notwithstanding the Daschle attacks, the public favors the Republican approach to the economy over the Democrats' approach by 43-37 percent.
More bad news: That poll shows that, in the midst of a difficult war and a recession, the infamous "Right Direction/Wrong Track" question (Do you think the country is generally going in the right direction or is off on the wrong track?), has 65% of those polled think the country is going in the right direction. That includes 56 percent of Democrats asked.
Finally, on the Bush "Job Approval" question, Gallup has President Bush stuck at 87%. Not only that, but two-thirds of African-Americans - 68% approve of the job he is doing.
Yep. The Democrats have the President right where they want him, all right. This is going to be a tough, tough year for the Bush White House.
Can we talk about Enron for a moment? Every reporter, commentator, Democrat, and general run-of-the-mill Talking Head has pointed to the Enron fiasco as REAL TROUBLE for the Bush White House.
The general theory being promulgated on the chat shows is: There is no evidence that anyone at Enron did anything illegal. There is no evidence that anyone in the Bush Administration did anything improper. Therefore the Bush Administration is in big trouble on the Enron thing.
The usual suspects have seized upon the Enron collapse as the final proof that we need campaign finance reform. Enron gave a bunch of money to Bush and other Republican causes. They also gave a bunch of money to Democratic causes - in fact Washington Post reporter Dan Morgan wrote that "several senior Enron officials spent election night at Mr. Gore's headquarters in Tennessee" last year. Maybe that should have tipped us off.
The central theme of the campaign finance reformers is: Large companies give large donations to get large favors in return.
What did Enron get in return for its donations?
Nothin', would be the answer. Nothin' from Commerce Secretary Don Evans. Nothin' from Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. Nothin' from the White House.
It seems to me that this is an argument AGAINST campaign finance reform. Good people will do the right thing. Bad people will do the wrong thing. No matter what the law says.
If this had happened during the Clinton administration what do you think would be going on?
Kee-Rekt. Hugh Rodham would be collecting large fees for negotiating pardons.
A reporter for the NY Times asked me what I thought about the six meetings the Administration had held with representatives of Enron. I said, if an Administration - any Administration - were working on a comprehensive national Labor policy wouldn't it stand to reason they might have a couple of chats with John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO? In fact, wouldn't it seem just a little ODD if they didn't?
Enron was the largest energy trading company on the planet. It would have been derelict to ignore Enron during the construction of the energy policy. Oh, and according to Counselor to the Vice President Mary Matalin, Enron got more of that nothin' in the 170-or-so recommendations which came out of that effort.
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