Doris in Des Moines spins the news.

So I'm reading in the paper this morning that Boy George's campaign for the next unbearable eight months is going to focus on "character," which is a code-word for "sex." Can't he go back to running for Federal Superintendent of Schools, Chief Fundraising Division? At least vacuous ideas are still "ideas." I'd just go back to bed, but having to think about Shrub's character is leaving me a little frigid.

We now have to act like we care that Dubya, along with 249,999,999 other Americans, has never done the dirty boogie with a White House intern. And, like the rest of us teeming millions, he has never had occasion to lie about it, either. Is somebody going to ask me to believe that this is a qualification for the presidency?

What Bush is pointing out is that he has never cheated on his wife with anybody, intern or not. The problem is that there doesn't appear to be any evidence that Al Gore has done the horizontal waltz with anybody but Tipper. Bush must believe that the vice president of a cheating president is logically as guilty as the president. So when the Original Bush said during the Iran-Contra affair that he was "out of the loop" during the juicy parts, this is different from Gore's notorious iced-tea problem (i.e., "out in the loo") because we're talking about sex, dammit, not lying. And you can't hold the sons responsible for the sins of the fathers. It says that right in the Bible. Or maybe the Constitution. Whatever.

Besides, all that is ancient history, stuff that happened way back when Dubya, the arch-opponent of affirmative action and social promotion, was getting into Yale with hopelessly mediocre grades. Now, he cheerfully incarcerates young drug users who are now sincerely sorry for their lack of mature judgement: then, he was busy with his own youthful delinquency. This is all different from Gore's hypocrisy on campaign finance reform--today's box scores--because Bush hasn't technically owned up to drug use, and furthermore, the statute of limitations has run out on any crime he may or may not have committed. This, in turn, is different from Clinton's attempt to wiggle out of having to admit to a non-criminal act in a deposition on an unrelated matter, because while cheating on your wife is a high crime and misdemeanor, snorting a little snow is just human weakness. And there are no tapes to say otherwise.

Moreover, it isn't just about sex and drugs, it's about Whitewater. Bush is all for giving the taxpayers their money back, not letting the politicians do questionable things with it. This is why he banked a mega-million dollar profit on the sale of his baseball team, while leaving the city of Arlington to pay millions in restitution for the deal engineered by the Rangers. This appropriation of taxpayer funds is OK because the Rangers didn't steal the land from the Mathes family. They formed and then hid behind a governmental agency to do it, which makes it "legal" and leaves the public having to bat cleanup. This is different from Whitewater because even after all these years and all those (tax) dollars, we have managed to find evidence only that the Clintons lost money when they invested with someone who turned out to be crooked. If you make money screwing the taxpayers, you are a "successful entrepreneur." If you lose money in a perfectly legal, if dumb, investment, you should get indicted (unless it's the oil business). If Bush can't tolerate anything, it's a loser.

However, Bush feels in his heart that he isn't a hypocrite. Bush's heart pops into the debate a lot, usually to function as evidence that something that appears to be patently obvious isn't any such thing, and I resent you saying so. Bush's heart reminds me of those New Age gurus who are always claiming to be able to talk to dead people or bend spoons or predict when you're going to draw the two of clubs. They never have any evidence that the rest of us can see, hear, feel, smell, or touch. It always comes down to an emotionally intense assertion of their own fervent belief, coupled with the testimonials of credulous followers who have given them a lot of money. And do they get pissy when you act skeptical.

For instance, Bush's heart knows that he is not an anti-Catholic bigot. Unfortunately, we do have empirical evidence that he will cheerfully pander to--and afterwards dump on--anti-Catholic bigots in order to scrounge a few votes. This does not, ipso facto, make him a bigot. It makes him an opportunistic, hypocritical weasel. But Bush's heart cannot apparently process this kind of data. Like the ESP "researchers," Bush's heart can only report positive results. Anything else--anything that might shake his self-righteousness a little--can be written off as someone "not having an open (read 'empty') mind."

Is anyone out there old enough to remember the last born-again southern businessman-turned-governor to become president? (Clinton was never a businessman, children.) Jimmy Carter went on record--in Playboy, if I remember correctly--as admitting that while he had never actually done Rosalyn wrong, he had "lusted in his heart," which, according to his own sincere beliefs, made him as guilty as the most flagrant philanderer, and thus he was in no position to get too moralistic about other people's shortcomings. Bush's heart, which has been spending more time in the news than Carter's ever did, only seems able to show that he is always the aggrieved innocent. And why not? The Gipper kicked that Carter wimp's ass. You can only go so far with this "compassionate" business.

And then some of our more wide-eyed and ingenuous "news analysts" in the respectable publications keep insisting that, in person, the Dubya is really a very likable guy. As if every successful con artist since the invention of moveable type hasn't been a very likeable guy. The abrasive ones that immediately make your skin crawl don't hawk a lot of postal coupons or eternal-youth elixirs, you know. Of course not all charming people are sleazebags, either. But we need a little more to go on than their party manners, or their solemn appeals to the purity of their own hearts, before we can think about giving them access to the public purse.

It was the great Lily Tomlin--not the ghost of Lee Atwater--who once said, "I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific." Boy George wants to be the "Candidate With Character," but it turns out to be just like that "Reformer With Results" thing. We try to get behind the vague miracle claims, and we discover that Bush is an evasive, childish, hypocritical profiteer who also happens to be pious and faithful to his wife. And not only did he not inhale, there is only a fifty-fifty chance that he took a hit on it to begin with. Oh yeah, and he's fun at social events and nice to his cats. Gee, if that doesn't drag us all out of bed bright and early on a cold Tuesday in November, I don't know what will. 4/2/00

1st in Children without Health Insurance %...1st in Toxic Air Releases...1st in Smog Days (Houston)...1st in poorest counties(3)...3rd in Hunger %...5th in Highest Teen Birth Rate...41st in Breast Cancer Screenings...45th in Mothers Receiving Pre-Natal Care...46th in Public Libraries and Branches...46th in High School Completion Rate...46th in Water Resources Protection...47th in Delivery of Social Services...48th in Literacy...48th in Per Capita Funding for Public Health...48 in Best Place to Raise Children (29th before Bush)*...48th in Spending for Parks and Recreation...48th in Spending for the Arts...49th in Spending for the Environment...50th in Women with Health Insurance...50th in Teachers' Salaries plus Benefits... *Children's Rights Council. further documentation
Only one accredited child-care center exists for every 2,637 children. A fourth of children still are not immunized by age 2. --Texas Freedom Network.

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