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- NATION, Page 37American NotesCIVIL RIGHTSBetter Late Than Never
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- George Bush looked more than a little relieved. After two
- years of stalling, his top aides had finally worked out a civil
- rights compromise with Congress -- and none too soon. Bush
- hardly relished the prospect of vetoing a civil rights bill in
- the same fortnight that the Senate nearly disintegrated over the
- Clarence Thomas nomination and an ex-Klansman named David Duke
- became the Republican Party candidate in Louisiana's
- gubernatorial runoff.
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- The President said for months that he wouldn't sign a bill
- requiring businesses to resort to quotas to avoid discrimination
- suits. The breakthrough was engineered by Senator John Danforth,
- the Missouri Republican who shepherded Thomas' nomination
- through the Senate. Danforth believed that Bush's opposition to
- a civil rights bill was uninformed, and complained late last
- week that a White House analysis of his compromise bill, leaked
- to NBC News, misrepresented the facts. Within hours, the
- year-old White House stalemate collapsed. Asked afterward if
- Bush "owed him one," Danforth replied, "I don't think he feels
- that way, and I've never felt that way either."
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