Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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An Important Week

Friday, June 15, 2001

Last week, after the Jeffords defection, we had been told that with the change in control of the Senate, Tom Daschle, not George Bush would be setting the agenda.

From David Espo's AP piece yesterday afternoon:

"In a triumph for President Bush, the Senate overwhelmingly passed groundbreaking education legislation Thursday that requires annual math and reading tests for millions of schoolchildren as part of an effort to improve the nation's public schools."

In another Congressional matter, from Alan Fram's AP reporting from deep inside the House Appropriations Committee:

"House Republicans rejected a Democratic effort Thursday to impose federal price caps on electricity prices in the Western United States amid an intensifying partisan divide over energy."

Another agenda item thwarted.

We had been told that when he met with the NATO leaders about missile defense, President Bush would be walking into a chilly reception the likes of which would make the cooler at the Ice House Beer Drive-Thru and Underage Drinking Center seem warm and toasty.

As in this Reuters piece by Arshad Mohammed filed early Wednesday morning:

"Many U.S. allies fear the missile defense envisaged by Bush may upset three decades of strategic stability because it will require amending or abandoning the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty which forbids such defensive systems."

But AFTER Bush's meeting this, from an unbylined Reuters report:

"The meeting was perfectly amiable, friendly and positive, but since it was a round table of 19 there wasn't much chance to see him one-on-one, where his strength probably lies,'' said one alliance insider.

A Senior Administration official told reporters after the meeting that UK Prime Minister Tony Blair more or less echoed Bush in talking about a changing world, saying that NATO should consider both offensive and defensive systems. "Still," Anne Kornblut wrote in the Boston Globe, "his was among the most positive reactions to the message Bush brought to NATO."

Shock of the week: "The toughest criticism came from Prime Minister Wim Kok of the Netherlands and President Jacques Chirac of France," which is great news for President Bush as most of the known universe waits until France takes a position � and then goes the other way.

The latest piece of "THIS IS ALL BUSH'S FAULT" is this business about using the Puerto Rican island of Vieques for target practice by Navy and Marine pilots. If you only read today's coverage you would think that George Bush took the oath of office on January 20th and immediately turned to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and said, "Find some land owned by Puerto Ricans and bomb the devil out of it."

That bible of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the "Village Voice" noted that "the number of years the U.S. Navy has used the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a practice bombing-range equals � 60." In case you run out of fingers and toes that goes back to 1941.

The howls from the left are centered around the fact that Bush said the training would end in 2003 and they want it ended immediately.

However, a quick check of the calendar function in Outlook 2000 shows me that within those 60 years there was a period during which one William Jefferson Clinton had the absolute authority to stop the bombing immediately but couldn't seem get there at any point during his eight-year administration.

The Washington professional clucking class is all a-bother saying that this was a political move engineered by White House Strategic Chief, Karl Rove.

In the words of the immortal Roy Biggins, "Your so-called point being �?"

The Left was loaded for bear on this one ready to make President Bush out to be an insensitive Gringo; There is a referendum scheduled for July in Puerto Rico on this subject which will pass overwhelmingly; and President Bush has a long history of being very closely attunded to the needs of Hispanics in this hemisphere.

So it appears Rove should get the credit, not the blame.

And as if that weren't enough good news, this from the Associated Press:

"A federal appeals court Thursday upheld the convictions and sentences of the Rev. Al Sharpton (90 days) and three New York politicians (40 days) who were arrested during a demonstration against Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques."

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