European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 4, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes sunday february 4,1990 columns William Saf Irethe essence of Bush is on display in his style Quot style Quot said the comte de la Clerc Bufton upon admission to the French Academy in 1753, a is the Man he held i hat style was not an outer garment or mask but was essence a that the Way you organized and expressed your thoughts was the Mark of the kind or person you were. For belter and worse. George Bush s style was on display last week let s Sec what clues the style of his stale of the Union address gives us about what sort of stewardship his word we have in store. He grasped the Central phenomenon of our time the Stampede to Freedom started by the crumbling of com Murt rsm. Bush was not a Csc a trick to claim credit As part of it the first Garcal change he listed in the past 12 months was his overthrow of Panama s dictator. History will record the ouster of Manuel Noriega As a Mere Blip on the screen showing world tectonic shifts a but it was this president s baby and in seeking to make the most of it he trivialized his Point. Here was a speech that probably started out with a Point of View a that we can All take part in the explosion of Freedom abroad and at Home a but was nibbled to death by bureaucrats plugging parochial concerns. You could see the traditional a i Sec an America where Quot construction hacked away to seven paragraphs Starling with Quot where Quot and failing to define the legitimate vision in his mind and even in his program. Through the Thicket or false starts and repetitions the Shore of his Domestic vision could be dimly seen his idea of the expansion of world Freedom includes Freedom from the tyranny of drugs Freedom to go to work without worrying about care of Fth children Freedom to breathe clean air. Freedom of Opportunity that will follow the Conquest of ignorance and . This set of freedoms is right Tor our time but its jumbled presentation showed a confusion in priority. He won t be Able to sell his Quot new consensus Lyndon Johnson i Ives until he gets it straight in his head. He has Forg Ouen the lesson we thought he Learned at the beginning he is himself nol Ronald Reagan and should nol try the Reagan acting devices. A Little Schmaltz goes a Long Way the Bush reference id his grandchild was a warm and natural Extension of his in Reagan like family closeness but the addition of the letter from the dead it struck a falsely dramatic and imitative note. What he should have teamed from his predecessor is not to talk Only to the audience in the chamber but to use that patriotic forum to reach the individual watching lit 16 Wicent at Home. He never even saluted his fellow citizens. In his Patchwork quilt state of the Union. Bush formally addressed Only a roomful of elected officials occasionally numbing the viewer with a reference to the people a out we re nol Quot out there Quot in we re right Here at Home paying his salary and Here is our guest going on and on to a Palm pounding pack of preening pols. Sensible advice or course. Easy to follow far from it. In this address above All others a president is lugged in Ull directions by his bureaucracy his sleeve plucked at by every special in Lerest. He proves his leadership a his clarity of purpose a not by repealing the word Quot leadership Quot at the Behest of Quoter but by a a a a a a a a Ting to Raph c worked for Fortiy at the . His pollster. As Welt As by resisting the Guy who Rusl with a give pm a Lead graph on i in ruthlessly shortening and sharpening a a a a secs i give pm a Lead graph on troop reductions which it in at the end for this is where the president himself a not his and aides but Numero Uno alone a determines the direction of his administration. Leaving out is hard to do. Whal Little he Jett out the democratic opposition supplied in speaker Foley a Workmanlike but soporific response the president s timidity on Tiana men Square and his rigidity on abortion. I missed the classic characterization in this state or the Union Hal the slate is Guiod or sound or whatever. President Ford s Best line was the Post watergate. Quot the state of the u Nion is not Bush put in qualifiers that vitiated his assessment Quot so Long As we remember the american idea. The slate of the Union will remain sound and iffy. In sum Here comes the peroration there stands George Herbert Walker Bush a his key annual speech unfocused but sincere verbose but Well intentioned slyly generous in his tone a Man Happy in his work in his delivery a Leader drawing Confidence from his popularity. That s the Bush style and i think that s the Man himself. A the you. Taro George will the Washington Money monopoly game goes on the 40th presidents 10th budget went to Congress All the Way from California a Reagan must have some fax Bill and the 41 is president delivered the state of the Union address. The address following the budget further defined the Bush administration As a limousine without a transmission nothing connecting motor mind with wheels action. Meanwhile sen. Patrick Moynihan . Has been demonstrating that his parly is a Jalopy with no motor. President Bush s budget and address Are suitable punctuations of his first car. Exercises in the politics of impeccable sentiments save More balance the budget read to the children. But to govern is to choose and Bush Given his first All. Do not inhibit the expression of impeccable Scal Imants. The state of the Union telecast did Illy i doubtless lost on Bush. His in lira Cal i contain one wonderfully droll moment Tiliti new reason is Good because governmental anaemia is Good. And Why not even the anaemic can have impeccable sentiments the democratic party is increasingly Cal program is the avoidance or new perhaps incorrigible and terminally the taxes which depends on squandering the party of government As an interest group. Social Security surplus Astals As it flows a it its he party of of ple receive government benefits. Ils Credo is any tax Cut however compensated for is not Worth the risk that it might not be compensated for. Why is the Al Cio so squeamish Fly a i Viii Silipin Maui Nril in crack at a budget chose not to choose is he Inge Quot the Beijing regime or Gorbachev s use of his budget is he his foreign policy of being comfortable with whatever is. Be it Force to suppress yearnings for self determination. Bush s speech in Praise of Good works would have been better had n not been preceded by a budget Hal refutes it. Bush s budget expresses How completely comfortable he is with the Strait Tackel Reagan Pul on government with Lis deliberate deficits. The deficits after Security surplus in. So when he intoned hat we must not a mess around with social Security Quot republicans Rose As so Many sheep to bleat approval. But also rising and slowly clapping and Savouring the irony of it All was sen. Moynihan. Moynihan proposes cutting social Security taxes thereby turning off the spigot that enables Bush to continue the pretence that the government s operating deficit is disappearing. Bush s retort is augustinian. Like the Young and far from saintly Augustine Bush says Quot lord make me Chaste a but not yet. Not until 1993, naturally. Bush promises he then will attack the social Security problem with More creative bookkeeping. Moynihan has put on his party a plate an idea. His party unused to such a Rich diet has developed heartburn. Many democrats now Mirror the mindlessness of the Many conservatives who believe that any tax Cut at any time for any about Moynihan s proposal so tentative in Semi endorsing it one reason is that in a few years a majority of Al Cio members May be Public employees. So never mind that the social Security tax is regressive and suppresses Job creation. Public employment always grows. Federal civilian employment grew 211,000 during the Reagan the social Security surplus is growing St billion a week. In a few years lire rate will be s3 billion a week. Public employees know a Bird in the hand when they see it. The Birds in the Bushes a alternative Revenue sources a might be More equitable and economically efficient but 11 billion a week Isnit chopped liver so Why a mess around with social Security a better question is Why not mess around with some other frauds for four years. Rep. Bob Mcew Art a Ohio has been nudging two Republican presidents and his colleagues to pay out or Cut Back the Highway and Airport Trust funds. Nine cents on every gallon of Gas and 8 percent of every airline ticket Price Are dedicated taxes that can Only be used for Highway and Airport improvements. But the monies arc not being spent. They Are being hoarded to mask the size of the deficit. Mcewan wants the Money spent for the purposes for which it has been collected or he wants to a Send the lie Quot and Cut those taxes pulling the Trust funds on a pay As you go fooling. He has asked the help of the chairman of the water resources transportation and infrastructure subcommittee of the Senate Public works and trans portion committee who is a guess. Moynihan. Moynihan says there is indeed too much Money a $28 billion a sloshing around in the funds. If we Start now and spend $313 billion in current dollars we can by the year 2000 have highways As Good As. They were in 1983. But bad roads suit a nation in which one political party lacks a transmission and the other a motor. E win Hington poll Artura group
