TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/050889/05088900.049

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 7.1 KB | 145 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 22

Bless Me, Father


Bush seeks Reagan's approval, even as he edges away from him

By Dan Goodgame


    He is 64 years old and the leader of all he surveys, yet
for a moment last week George Bush looked like a schoolboy
called before the principal to discuss his report card. Perched
nervously on a beige sofa in Ronald Reagan's Los Angeles office,
Bush held the tip of his tongue between his lips, smiling thinly
as the old President blandly pronounced that the new President
is "doing just fine."

    Bush looked decidedly relieved when Reagan brushed aside
reporters' questions about the dilution of Reagan policies on
Star Wars and military aid to the Nicaraguan contras. "Well,"
Reagan said cautiously, "having had for eight years some of the
same problems he's facing now, I'm not going to comment on
that."

    Reagan's praise was faint, and the body language between
the two men, as ever, betrayed discomfort. Nevertheless, Bush's
advisers felt he had accomplished a major purpose of his visit:
to shore up his crucial and complex relationship with his
predecessor and, by extension, with Reagan's loyalists on the
Republican right. As Bush jetted last week from Chicago to San
Jose to Miami, pointing with pride to the accomplishments of his
first 100 days, he and his aides stressed their "continuity"
with Reagan and felt obliged to deny the obvious: embedded in
their accomplishments are subtle but distinct breaks with Reagan
and the right. Among them:

    Star Wars. Bush and several of his top advisers view with
skepticism Reagan's expensive vision of a high-tech shield from
enemy missiles. The 1990 budget agreement cuts funding for the
program to $4.6 billion from Reagan's proposed $5.9 billion.

    Contras. Reagan hailed the rebels fighting Nicaragua's
Marxist government as "the moral equivalent of our Founding
Fathers" and sent them overt and covert military support. Bush
and Secretary of State James Baker, however, immediately
abandoned the nigh hopeless goal of supplying them with more
guns and bullets and, instead, struck a deal with Congress to
provide continued food and housing assistance, pending elections
promised by Nicaragua's junta.

    Arms Control. At the Reykjavik summit in 1986, Reagan
stunned many of his advisers and allies by embracing the
elimination of all nuclear weapons, a move that would expose
Western Europe to the Warsaw Pact's overwhelming numerical
superiority in troops and tanks. Bush has expressed far less
enthusiasm for nuclear-weapons reductions and has suggested they
may have to be conditioned on cuts in Soviet conventional
forces.

    The Budget. Reagan relished sending Congress what one
senior aide called "a go-to-hell budget" laden with
domestic-spending cuts patently unacceptable to the Democrats.
Bush declared at his Inauguration, "The American people didn't
send us here to bicker." He drew up a less contentious proposal
and, by managing to persuade congressional leaders to accept his
overly optimistic economic assumptions, struck a deal by
mid-April.

    The Environment. Reagan, who was famous for asserting that
trees cause pollution, cut back on environmental protection.
After declaring in his campaign, "I am an environmentalist,"
Bush has appointed a respected conservationist to head the EPA;
called for the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons, which harm
the ozone layer; promised action on a clean-air package and
restrictions on acid rain; and proposed adding a mile per gallon
to federal mileage standards for motor vehicles.

    Gun Control. Reagan opposed it. Bush, too, is against new
federal gun-control laws, but he responded to police and public
pressure for controls on military-style assault weapons by
banning the imported (though not U.S.-made) semiautomatic
rifles.

    Bush's aides argue that these differences are a matter of
approach and attitude rather than intent. "President Bush has
not suddenly turned Democrat or liberal," says press secretary
Marlin Fitzwater. "He shares the same goals as President Reagan,
but like anyone, he has his own style." Bush also has a
different hand to play. His party does not control either house
of Congress. He was elected with no specific mandate. He lacks
Reagan's gift for rallying public support via television, and
the budget crunch leaves him few goodies to trade for political
support. Says a senior Bush official who also served under
Reagan: "This Administration can't afford ideological
posturing."

    Chief of staff John Sununu adds, "We're less interested in
looking good than in getting results . . . and we're willing to
work very closely with Congress to get results." That is where
Bush uses tools Reagan never had: energy, intense interest and
background in the details of policy and long-standing personal
ties to lawmakers and other Washington insiders.

    The usual Bush method of dealmaking with Congress is to
straddle an issue and give something to everybody. Typical was
last week's decision to pursue development of both the mobile
MX missile and the Midgetman. Either one alone would serve the
nation's security needs, but both have strong supporters in
Congress. This method smacks of perfidious pragmatism to one of
the few papers Reagan is known to read and enjoy, the
conservative weekly Human Events, which bristles with articles
critical of the new Administration. "I do not think President
Bush's concept of the presidency can work," writes Patrick
Buchanan, communications director in the Reagan White House.
"Americans care much more about ideas and ideals than about
`bipartisanship' or political peace."

    A more personal barb came from columnist George Will, who
has close ties to the Reagans. He noted archly that when Bush
returned from his February trip to Asia, he called to consult
with former President Jimmy Carter rather than Reagan. That may
explain Bush's eagerness last week to recruit Reagan for special
diplomatic missions to Asia and elsewhere.

    Meanwhile, another former Republican President, Richard
Nixon, urged Bush to stop his staff from contrasting his
hands-on energy with Reagan's well-known sloth and detachment.
Bush, whose politeness is legendary, was furious that anyone on
his payroll would blurt such disrespectful truths. One senior
Bushman who had also worked for Reagan felt obliged to write to
Nancy Reagan (with a copy to President Bush) denying he had
bad-mouthed her husband.

    This need to look over his shoulder prevents Bush from
taking as much credit as he might for his early successes. "If
they draw too much attention to this approach of taking what you
can get from the Democrats in Congress," says a Bush adviser
outside Government, "they're going to attract more fire from the
conservatives." Instead, Bush will soon emphasize his toughness
on two issues dear to the right: his veto strategy to "hold the
line" on the minimum wage and his plan to build more prison
cells. As a wry college coach once put it, the trick is to keep
the alumni "sullen but not mutinous." A few outright partisan
victories might help.