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                                                                                NATION, Page 26

THE POLITICAL INTEREST

Searching in Vain for the True Bush


By Michael Kramer


    In the late 1960s, at a point when he was furious with
those who had thwarted his White House ambitions, Nelson
Rockefeller told a group of conservative Republicans, "I'm a
hawk on foreign policy, I'm a conservative on the economy, and
I'm a dove on social matters. You've got two-thirds of me. What
more do you want?" Their answer, of course, was "everything,"
which Rocky wouldn't, or couldn't, deliver.

    A decade later, another moderate Republican seeking the
presidency applauded Rockefeller's stance. "Two-thirds should
be more than enough to gain the nomination," George Bush said
in 1979. But as it wasn't for Rockefeller, so it wasn't for
Bush. Unlike Rocky, though, Bush finally got the message. To
join Ronald Reagan's 1980 ticket, the man who had supported
Planned Parenthood and a host of liberal domestic positions
anathema to the right reinvented himself as a "reformed"
pro-lifer and social-policy conservative.

    Not to worry, Bush's cronies told those appalled by their
man's conversion, George doesn't really believe any of it. He's
still the same centrist Republican who attracted us in the first
place. When he gets to the top, you'll see the true Bush emerge.
Just wait.

    Well, they're still waiting -- and it has become clear
that the term "true Bush" is an oxymoron. The only thing really
real about the President is his desire for office, which is
why, as he himself said, he will do anything to be re-elected.
And so John Frohnmayer, the head of the National Endowment for
the Arts, had to go. Bush knew what he was getting when he
selected Frohnmayer in 1989, and the President's friends
heralded the appointment as proof that Bush's heart was in the
right place. But then, on Feb. 20, Pat Buchanan signaled his
intent to trash the NEA for "subsidizing filthy and blasphemous
art," and Frohnmayer was gone the next day. "We had to wipe away
at least one of Pat's points in advance," concedes a Bush aide.
"Dumping John was craven, but it was just politics."

    Bad politics -- on two counts. First, as just about anyone
capable of thinking more than a single chess move ahead could
have predicted, Buchanan began his air assault anyway. The first
TV spot hit last week in Georgia. "The Bush Administration," it
says, "has invested our tax dollars in pornographic and
blasphemous art too shocking to show." Second, Bush forthrightly
supported Frohnmayer in March 1990: ". . . the Federal
Government," said the President, "((shouldn't get)) into telling
every artist what he or she can paint." Bush stood up -- and
standing up is everything. Ronald Reagan understood that
principle of leadership (and political survival) better than
anyone else. The polls routinely described an electorate
disaffected from a wide range of Reagan's policies. But his
support held because he was seen to have the courage of his
convictions. Bush's problem is that he is increasingly seen to
have neither.

    A more serious example of weakness was evident during the
President's State of the Union address. By most accounts, Bush
believes the best economic policy is to leave matters alone. But
he sees that course as politically untenable, and so larded his
speech with a series of halfhearted palliatives that most voters
have greeted with a yawn. Better again for him to have told the
truth as he saw it -- better for the economy, perhaps; better
for his electoral prospects, certainly.

    Another test is due shortly. In a few weeks the Senate
will affirm the House's decision to revoke the Federal
Government's ban on fetal-tissue research. Unlike the freedom
to paint what one chooses, this issue has severe consequences
for millions of Americans afflicted with diseases like
Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes. Because the tissue required
to aid these sufferers comes from aborted fetuses, the Bush
Administration has prevented federal support of the necessary
research. For the conservatives who control U.S. health policy,
the legal status of abortion is immaterial. "Yes, abortion is
still legal," acknowledges James Mason, the Assistant Secretary
of Health and Human Services who oversees the ban. "But we
represent the view that says it is immoral, and we're not going
to support anything that makes abortion more likely." What Mason
fears most is success. "If diseases are actually cured," he
says, "the demand for aborted fetuses will be incredible, and
a woman who might otherwise not have an abortion will have her
decision tipped in favor of having one simply to help the sick."

    Shortly before he died last year, Lee Atwater, the former
G.O.P. national chairman, told me that "Bush had to get into bed
with the pro-lifers to get the '88 nomination. But that was the
politics of then. Do I think staying in bed with them on
something that holds medical promise for millions could actually
threaten his re-election in '92? You bet."

    Some months ago, two White House aides predicted that Bush
would "do the right thing" and let Congress's revocation stand.
Today those same men are certain that Bush will ignore Atwater's
advice and veto the legislation, thus proving anew that the man
who got the right's message long ago has been virtually
imprisoned by it ever since -- and so may lose in November
because of it.