When Bush talks, people listen

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 25, 2002 | by Jennifer G. Hickey

They said he had an accent and a speaking style that some modern Torquemada might use to interrogate Taliban prisoners if it weren't certain to violate the Geneva Convention. But in responding to challenges to the country during his first year in office, President George W. Bush repeatedly has stepped to the podium with the kind of conviction and forthrightness that since Lincoln almost all Americans have associated with authentic eloquence. As he prepared to deliver his Jan. 29 State of the Union address, only the most bitter partisans were sneering that the foes against which he had loosed the U.S. military were hardly more formidable than his personal war on syntax and diction.

The presence in the chamber of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim leader, and Sima Samar, that nation's new minister of women's affairs, dramatically illustrated the magnitude of the historic developments of the weeks and months preceding his last address to a joint session of Congress. Although many of the nearly 52 million viewers who tuned in to hear the speech did so with an eye on domestic policy and the economy, the Bush administration's continuing concern with foreign foes was evident.

In addition to sending an eviction notice to the terrorist who squats "in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centers of large cities," he broadened the Bush Doctrine to "prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends." He warned Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Some analysts suggested the speech marked a change in U.S. foreign policy, but Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and national-security adviser in the Clinton administration, disagrees. "[The Bush Doctrine] has changed a lot less. I think they look at Sept. 11 as confirmation of what they've believed all along, that it is a very dangerous world" Daalder told a post-speech panel discussing the address.

That Iraq would be considered part of the "axis of evil" was no surprise, but Daalder says inclusion of Iran likely was a consequence of its recent activities in Afghanistan and, especially important, its alleged involvement in the shipment of arms seized at sea before reaching Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. The president's careful warnings were met with predictable denunciation among those to whom they were aimed and their clients. But the unpredictable real-world consequences will have become clearer by late February when the president travels to Seoul, South Korea, on a scheduled diplomatic mission.

Aware that homeland security is in many measures reliant upon economic security, Bush took the occasion of the State of the Union to emphasize his belief that the road to recovery must be paved by a policy that cuts taxes and, in the short term, tolerates budget deficits. Challenging Democrats, who frequently blame the lost budget surplus on his tax cut without calling for full repeal, Bush called on Congress to make the tax cuts permanent. And to the GOP's cheers of "work, work, work" he urged the Senate (as he has done in speeches before and since) to pass his job-oriented stimulus and energy plans. In acknowledging the recession and the reality of future deficits, he said they will be of short duration only "so long as Congress restrains spending and acts in a fiscally responsible way."

Foes will be found on both sides of the aisle. Liberals will seize on small items in the Bush budget as exemplifying the administration's compassionless policies concerning welfare, poverty, etc. Conservatives, on the other hand, will focus on the broader principle of limiting government, cutting fresh spending for not-so-fresh programs and keeping the tax man from choking the economy to death just as it shows a few hopeful signs.

Making it difficult will be the dearth of fiscal responsibility and depth of econotage and tomfoolery demonstrated in budget debates of recent years. Given the atmosphere of acrimony often present in an election year, the administration's task will be difficult. But Bush is getting some help. Appearing before the Senate Budget Committee earlier in the day of the president's address, Brian Wesbury, an economist at the firm of Griffin, Stephens & Thompson Inc., argued that "deficits matter much less than many of my economic brethren believe" and even "if the ultimate goal is to eliminate federal deficits and debt, the best way to achieve that goal is by encouraging growth."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), one of the few senators not attending a hearing on Enron, reported that growth is where the disagreements lie, contending the "big difference between the parties is what is the best way to stimulate economic growth." According to Clinton, whose business experience ranges from cattle futures to land development, the road to stimulation is through "balanced tax reduction." And therein lies the whitewater.

In response to the State of the Union address, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe pledged support for the war effort but wasted no time in characterizing Republican economic policies as "little more than permanent tax relief for large corporations and the wealthiest Americans." The level of the budget debate and extent of the dramatics clearly had to await the official release of the administration's budget on Feb. 4, although there was concern that it would be overwhelmed in the news cycle with former Enron chief executive officer Kenneth Lay scheduled to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee the same day.