Round Two
A year after they mixed it up in these pages over the president's job performance, loyal Bushie Mark McKinnon and die-hard Democrat Paul Begala step back into the ring to argue over tax cuts, the war on terror, and the prospect if Al Gore in '04.
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Speaking of Enron, it was also a mistake for Bush to stock our government with Enron executives, Enron consultants, and Enron stockholders. It was a mistake to give Enron six meetings with the vice president’s energy task force; a mistake to let Enron dictate seventeen specific provisions in the energy plan; a mistake for W. to lie to the country about how well he knows Kenny-Boy Lay.
It was a mistake for him to cave in to special interests and unwind workplace safety rules, to give in to the insurance industry and overturn medical privacy rules, to obey the demands of the agribusiness conglomerates and backtrack on food-safety rules.
It was a mistake to spend all of the Medicare surplus and $2 trillion of the Social Security surplus on a tax cut for the rich, especially after he promised not to.
It was a mistake for him to tell the good people of Nevada (in an ad that ran just before Election Day; did you make that ad, by the way?) that he would not dump America’s nuclear waste in their state—and then do the nuclear industry’s bidding and locate the nuke dump in Nevada anyway.
It was a mistake to call for oil drilling in the Arctic wilderness, and then, when the Senate rejected his plan, to call for drilling in Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, and Colorado, all the while refusing to tell carmakers that energy independence requires greater fuel efficiency.
It was a mistake for W. to promise Ted Kennedy that he’d fully fund the education-reform bill you bragged on and then decide not to fund a training program for 18,000 teachers and after-school programs for 33,000 kids, as well as an education-assistance program for 6 million needy children.
How about his foreign policy mistakes? It was a mistake to abandon the Middle East to the terrorists who targeted Israel for fifteen months, and it was a mistake to expect Colin Powell to make up for fifteen months of Bush’s neglect in six days.
It was a mistake to abandon the moral clarity of the Bush Doctrine and criticize Israel for going after Palestinian terrorists, especially when the Israelis used less force than we used to go after Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan.
I know the whole world changed on September 11, but W. surely made a mistake in barely uttering the word “terrorism” in his first nine months in office and only then to argue for Star Wars. It was surely a mistake for him to abandon President Clinton’s high-alert submarine operations, which were preparing to go after Osama bin Laden. It was surely a mistake for Bush to undermine Clinton’s crackdown on money laundering, which could have tracked Al Qaeda’s financing. It was surely a mistake for Bush to abandon the Uzbek insurgents the Clinton-era CIA had trained to hunt for bin Laden.
It was surely a mistake for Bush, at Donald Rumsfeld’s urging, to threaten to veto the defense budget when Democrats tried to shift $600 million from Star Wars to anti-terror defenses.
It was surely a mistake to so underestimate the threat of terrorism. Don’t take my word for it. Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick, who served both Clinton and Bush on the National Security Council, told the Washington Post that Clinton’s seniormost aides met “nearly weekly” to plan their strategy against bin Laden. By contrast, he said, “candidly speaking, I didn’t detect” that kind of focus from Bush’s high command.
There’s no doubt you can and will marshal a strong defense against my characterization of these mistakes. Indeed, through a different ideological prism, you may not view some of them as mistakes at all. But even you have to admit that a few of them, if not all of them, are Texas-size screwups.
Not that the idea of Bush screwing up should surprise you. After all, when he ran the Texas Rangers, he traded Sammy Sosa.
Pablo
Hermano,
Please, please check the dosage on the Ritalin bottle.
First, let me point out how you’ve ignored my simple question about the Democrats and their agenda. I know why you didn’t answer it. Because there isn’t a coherent agenda. No vision. No leadership. No nothing. Total disarray. And I’ll tell you, Paul: You can criticize all you want, but it’s awful hard to beat something with nothing. Allow me to quote from one of your own people, Bill Keller, of the New York Times, who wrote about the recent Democratic beauty pageant in Florida: “‘Never, never, never, never, never, never give up,’ said Al Gore, mauling a line of Churchill’s. (Mr. Gore presumably had not yet taken that sentiment to heart when he gave up on seeking a statewide recount in Florida in the endless November of 2000.) But if the Democrats insist on speaking up, isn’t it fair to ask that they have something interesting to say? I read the speeches of the various early contenders in Florida and they consisted mainly of recycled themes from campaigns past.”
No, Paul, I did not write the Nevada ad. I don’t even know what ad you’re talking about. But I will tell you this: Like it or not, we have a lot of nuclear waste in this country, and it’s crucial that we store it somewhere safe. A whole lot of smart people who have studied the subject for decades decided the site in Nevada is the best place for it. Of course, the politics out there are difficult; politicians and jurisdictions have been passing the buck for years. And now, finally, someone, this president, had the cojones to make the decision final, even though it could very well cost him Nevada’s electoral votes in the next election. That’s called leadership, amigo.
Here are a few facts about President Bush’s environmental record, which I suspect you would say is his most vulnerable policy area. He may well be the first president ever to propose a multi-emission strategy that would cut power-plant emissions of three of the worst air pollutants—nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and for the first time ever, mercury—by 70 percent. His clean-air proposals will help protect everyone’s health by reducing pollutants such as smog and acid rain. He has committed to cutting greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent over the next ten years. His 2003 budget provides $4.5 billion for activities related to global climate change—a $700 million increase. That’s more than what any other country in the world is budgeting.
And his tax cuts? A recently released report by the Council of Economic Advisors provides hard evidence that the tax relief signed into law by the president last year is creating jobs, has provided a powerful economic stimulus, has softened the recession, and has laid the foundation for long-run economic growth. According to the report, the tax cuts will have helped the private sector create 800,000 more jobs than there otherwise would have been by the end of 2002, and they’ve raised the prospects of a solid recovery this year by lifting the economy’s expected growth rate from 2.2 percent to 2.7 percent.
You may disagree with the president’s plan, but I still haven’t heard yours—and neither has David Broder, of the Post. “When the House was debating its budget resolution a few weeks ago,” he wrote, “the Democrats didn’t propose an alternative of their own… . But the budget resolution, though lacking the force of law, is designed to be the clearest statement of a party’s policy priorities. As long as they are silent, the Democrats cannot be part of serious political debate… . The result is that the public views the Democrats, according to polls, as being incoherent on economic policy. Their vagueness is effectively surrendering this vital policy field to Bush and the Republicans… . What’s the use of a party that won’t give voters a real alternative on something as basic as the budget?”
So, Paul, you can keep barking and coming off your chain. But until you can articulate an alternative vision for the future, you ain’t going to have much bite.
Okay, okay, I give. The Sammy Sosa trade? Big mistake. Happy now?
Vaya con cuidado,
Mac
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