TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/070290/0702108.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 126 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 23

Two Faces of George Bush


The President still woos Democrats, but they are busy fighting
with his evil twin

By DAN GOODGAME


    NICE

    "I think Congress is dealing in good faith . . . I'm going
to try to keep my share of the bargain."

    -- Referring to the budget talks, May 16

    NASTY

    "Naturally, liberal Democrats want us to make reckless
defense cuts."

    -- Fund raising for Jesse Helms, June 20


    Some Democratic Congressmen like to sip martinis with the
President; others would rather play racquetball with him or fly
on Air Force One. For most of his 17 months in the White House,
George Bush has hosted and humored them all. He knows he must
court their support if he is to accomplish anything, especially
on the explosive issues of taxes and spending.

    Occasionally, though, a different Bush shows up for work.
He visibly clenches and unclenches his jaw, as if chewing
bullets. He sees a conspiracy anytime two Congressmen voice
similar criticisms of him. His speeches bristle with darts for
"liberal tax-and-spend Democrats" who want to cripple the
military while coddling drug pushers and flag burners. This is
the Bush that Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau calls Skippy,
the gentleman President's "evil twin," who pops up whenever
harsh partisanship is deemed necessary.

    Skippy made several appearances last week, as Bush
energetically stumped for Republican political candidates,
aggressively wielded his veto and blasted back at his critics:

    -- In response to what Bush described as "shots across my
bow" by prominent Democrats, White House Press Secretary Marlin
Fitzwater fired back on the savings-and-loan issue. "I see
disturbing signs of Democrats wanting to make this political
against Republicans, and I just want to put them on notice that
it plays both ways," Fitzwater said. "The Democrats have a big
role" in the S&L crisis, he added, citing three former leaders
of the House who left under ethical clouds and two current
Senators facing ethics investigations. Fair enough so far. But
Fitzwater then overreached in seeking to implicate Senator
Robert Kerrey of Nebraska, a trenchant critic of Bush. Fitzwater
offered no evidence of any wrongdoing by Kerrey, and neither
has anyone else.

    -- The President persisted in his crusade for a
constitutional amendment to prohibit defacement of the American
flag, despite the measure's failure last week to win the
required two-thirds majority in the House. During a
fund-raising speech for Senator Jesse Helms in Charlotte, N.C.,
Bush uncharacteristically thumped the lectern and vowed, "I
will fight for that amendment!" Republican strategists concede
that public interest in the two-year-old flag issue is fading,
yet they promise to hook it to a life-support system: negative
TV ads in the election campaign.

    -- In his speech for the conservative Helms (who frequently
snaps at Bush's right ankle), the President warned that "the
liberal Democrats want us to make reckless defense cuts." On
their pet domestic programs, however, the same liberals
"measure progress by dollars spent."

    This rhetoric, while tame by the standards of the 1988
campaign, comes at an odd moment: two new reports last week
showed the budget deficit widening to as much as $200 billion.
Only last month, Bush invited leaders of both parties on
Capitol Hill to join him in budget talks, in which all
participants could propose necessary but unpopular tax
increases and spending cuts without fear of political attack.
Bush wants a bipartisan budget agreement to get himself off
the hook of his most famous campaign pledge: to cut the deficit
without raising taxes. Yet his renewed donkey bashing makes
some Democrats wonder whether they may be blamed for the bitter
medicine that could emerge from any budget accord.

    To be sure, the Democrats in recent weeks have escalated
their own attacks, which Republicans fear are finding the mark
and pushing down the President's precious approval ratings on
the handling of the economy, especially the S&L crisis.
Although Democrats deserve as much blame as Republicans for the
S&L crisis, Kerrey and others have taken to calling Bush "the
S&L President." Congress also sent Bush a bill last week that
would have allowed wider political activity by federal
employees, but Bush rejected it: his twelfth veto and the
twelfth that Congress failed to override. Congress then sent
Bush a popular family-leave bill, despite his threat to veto it
too, because of its costs to business.

    The danger in all this bickering is that it might obstruct
urgently needed progress in the budget talks. If Bush and the
Congress do not agree on more than $60 billion in spending cuts
and tax increases by mid-October -- and perhaps by as early as
August -- automatic and unprecedented cuts will force the
layoff of hundreds of prison guards and the furlough of
thousands of convicted criminals. Layoffs will spread to FBI
agents and air-traffic controllers. Many college students will
go without loans, and poor elementary students may go without
lunch. But not to worry: Republicans and Democrats alike remain
confident that the other party can be blamed for whatever goes
wrong during the long election season that has only just begun.