The Week - political news

National Review, July 12, 1999

* Washington, D.C., is going to have a summer curfew for teenagers-and all these years President Clinton has been free on his own recognizance.

* The gun-control votes in the House presented a rare spectacle in Washington: The GOP outflanked Democrats on one of their pet issues. Majority whip Tom DeLay effectively muddied the Democrats' message by tapping the fearsome John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, to sponsor an NRA-backed provision on background checks for gun-show purchases. The Dingell amendment passed, with the support of 20 percent of the Democrats, but the larger gun-control bill failed, too weak for liberals, too strong for conservatives. This left minority leader Richard Gephardt grousing about the GOP's legislative maneuvering: "They can't run a one-car funeral." But Republicans did preside over a bipartisan burial of the gun-control issue. Gephardt acknowledged as much by eschewing the term "gun control" and instead lamenting the defeat of "gun safety" measures. As in the case of "reproductive choice," Democrats have an allegedly winning issue that dare not speak its name.

* Meanwhile, the House passed an amendment to the juvenile-crime bill that would allow states to decide whether to display the Ten Commandments in public schools and other public places. President Clinton, traveling in Germany, warned there would be "constitutional questions," but conceded that students ought to receive "character education." He might better have said "judicial questions": In 1980, the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law that required the posting of the Commandments in public schools. Prayers and Bible reading began in the public schools in the 1840s, when the public-school movement got going. Justices have lately been operating from the mistaken belief that the Constitution was interpreted correctly only in this generation, when the "wall of separation" between church and state was raised to the height of the Rockies. And too many legal scholars and pundits share the president's view that "character education" occurs only in an ahistorical void. All civilizations have a specific language of basic dos and don'ts. The Ten Commandments are ours. In Gulliver's Travels, Swift made the talking horses speak in disembodied ethical terms. But they are a fantasy. The Ten Commandments are Square One for American bipeds. Atheist kids can read Bertrand Russell during study hall.

* The press has given Al Gore two somewhat contradictory missions: He has to dispel the impression that he is boring, and he has to offer specifics. He met the second test in his maiden campaign speech by offering a laundry list of policies, thus flunking the first. Actually, neither mission is particularly pressing. The American public is not so frivolous that it will reject a president for not providing enough entertainment. That's not why it rejected President Bush in 1992, and that's not why it tolerated President Clinton in 1998. No, Gore's problem is more likely to lie in the public's (probably accurate) perception that he is pedantic, arrogant, and condescending, and that his outlook and values are different from theirs. How Gore solves his image problem is not yet clear, but the outlines of his campaign are. First, take credit for peace and prosperity. Beyond that, run as a New Democrat, a Clinton clone with the advantage of a zipper-control gene. Gore will defend middle-class entitlements against budget-cutting and privatizing Republicans and advance new government programs to benefit middle-class children. So Republicans are kidding themselves if they think Gore will be easy to beat. They have not yet found a politics that works against the Clinton formula. Gore may not win if the 2000 contest is about who speaks Spanish better, but he can very well win if it's about who is the better New Democrat.

* Following President Clinton's impeachment, Democrats predicted that the GOP would suffer at the polls for its anti-Clinton extremism. But now George W. Bush is publicly embracing impeachment and Vice President Gore feels compelled to hold Tipper's hand on national television and condemn Clinton's behavior as "inexcusable." In the case of Bush, it's about time-back when his opinion might have counted, he merely criticized Clinton's lying and called impeachment a matter for Congress. (What's next? Bush condemning U. S. Grant, or coming down harshly on Teapot Dome, or questioning the missing 18-and-a-half minutes?) The same goes for Gore, whose obnoxious cheerleading last fall made him look like the Clinton accomplice he has been. But perhaps honesty in retrospect is better than none at all.

* Conservatives should welcome the news that Sen. Orrin Hatch may seek the GOP presidential nomination. Think about it: If Hatch buttons his high collar for duty, he will be less likely to realize his dream of being nominated to the Supreme Court. Even if Gov. Bush implodes and by some fluke the Utah senator-songwriter is elected, he will not have lifetime tenure. Run, Orrin, run!