European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 1, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday february 1, 1992 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary George will Bush full of sound fury signifying nothing if you get a girl up on her tiptoes for a kiss it had better be a humdinger. By improvidently implying that his state of the Union address would be a map to the new Jerusalem Bush got the nation up on its tiptoes. Some kiss. It is a measure of the intellectual Cotton Candy that fills the mind of the administration that president Bush a associates advertised this speech As the a defining moment of an administration 1,100 Days old. The administration is sharply defined As an administration without definition. This would have been Dandy As Bush a first state of the Union address but his third he said the runaway Domestic spending that has occurred under president Bush must Stop he said the explosion of suffocating regulations that has occurred under president Bush must Stop. He is on the losing Side of a monologue with himself. Because Bush on the stump expresses synthetic sentiments in garbled syntax americans often wonder what he Means. The answer May be that he does no to mean anything very much. He expresses Mere proposals not serious purposes. His rhetoric rarely rises to seriousness because it is just so much obligatory noise necessary for presidential events but not otherwise important. For example tuesday night he yet again feigned intense interest in a line item veto. Periodically he asks Congress for Power to Wield such a veto. Congress yawns and Bush drops the subject. Three years ago he claimed presidents have the implied Power for such a veto and was looking for a test Case to try it. But in three years of looking has not found one because he is not really looking. How about Aid to give educational Choice beyond Public schools for inner City parents of poor children he a for that. But not enough to fight for it or to raise a ruckus when the Senate last week Defeated it on an essentially party line vote led by Ted Kennedy whose parents never chose to Send him to Public schools. This dismissive treatment of the a education president is indicative. Congress likes Bush but does not respect him because it does no to have to which is Why it likes him. The deficit tuesday night he denounced it while proposing tax cuts and other changes that will expand it. Abortion once every january on the anniversary of the 1973 supreme court decision he waxes ardent on the subject. But there is no follow through. Civil rights he is for them too. But he is opposed to quota Bills like the one he opposed until he endorsed it. Free Trade he a for it. A fair Trade a meaning managed Trade a affirmative action for . Industry a with quotas and guaranteed outcomes he a for that too. Backward reels the mind. During the 1903 House of commons debate on protectionism British prime minister Arthur Balfour said he had no a settled convictions on the subject. This provoked an opposition my to compose this Doggerel i m not for free Trade and pm not for Protection i approve of them both and to both have objection. In going through life i continually find its a terrible business to make up ones mind. So in spite of All comments reproach and predictions i firmly adhere to unsettled convictions. Having such slight Balla amp to of principle Bush is immune to the charge that he is jettisoning it for reelection reasons. However Republican re election strategy is Clear get democrats into a bidding War regarding tax cuts. It is a War republicans cannot lose for two reasons. First republicans have their hearts in it. Democrats done to. Democrats Are still regretting the bidding War they got into with Ronald Reagan regarding tax cuts in 1981. Today they Are eager to forget that they almost a a won that War. They had Reagan flanked on the right a their tax cuts would have Cost the government More Revenue than Reagan so until at the last moment Reagan trumped hem by endorsing indexation of the tax code. Second if democrats collaborate in further shrinking of the governments Revenue base they make the election of a democratic president seem pointless. If democrats no longer believe in government As an Active a spending redistributing a engine of egalitarian social change what do they believe Bush a speech had a political logic borrowed from a memo written last dec. 10 by sen. Phil Granier Texas. The memo argued that democrats Hopes for revival hinge on using defense cuts to finance Domestic social spending that will buy the votes of swing constituencies such As Middle class voters anxious about health care. Gramm believes republicans can a deny that Opportunity by preemptively linking defense cuts to tax cuts. Bush did that tuesday in glut. The drama of 1992 will be in the democrats response to the dilemma of this thrown Down Gauntlet. C Washington Post writers group James j. Kilpatrick unique Opportunity to junk our nukes now the question is what should we do with the nukes my own answer fashioned equally of unavoidable ignorance and Strong conviction is to scrap 99 percent of them. President Bush is prepared to go a Long Way in that direction. In the near future he proposes to eliminate the entire Arsenal of 50 my intercontinental missiles. A bit further along he will eliminate 1,000 of the 1,500 nuclear warheads now positioned on minuteman ii missiles. He will Cut Back on b-2 bombers and reduce the number of missiles on strategic submarines. What will that leave in our nuclear Arsenal an inquisitive reporter asking specific questions about nuclear weapons runs into a Stone Wall of secrecy. The figure that is widely reported is 11,500 weapons counting everything from Small tactical warheads to intercontinental ballistic missiles. The former soviet Union is said to have about the same number. The Washington Post reports that the reductions promised by the president will eliminate 1,500 land based warheads and 1,400 sea based warheads. These would be in addition to a cutback of 2,000 to 3,000 nuclear warheads pledged in the strategic arms reduction talks. This is surely a Good Start. The president will have abundant support in his program. In an address at Harvard University on Jan. 23, sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa proposed to reduce stockpiles to 1,000 strategic weapons apiece for the United states and the new russian nation. The . Air Force in december created a bipartisan panel of defense experts to study a nuclear strategy for the future. Rep. Les Aspin of Wisconsin the influential chairman of the House armed services committee will be publishing a report of a nuclear policy appropriate to the new  he makes a sensible and urgent Case for major reductions. Other things Are going on. Russian president Boris Yeltsin has pledged to a turn our intercontinental ballistic missiles away from All cities of the United  russian leaders said Yeltsin a no longer considers the United states our potential  surely we could take the reciprocal step of re targeting our missiles too. Where should these missiles be aimed what enemies do we have that could be overcome Only by nuclear warfare How Many nukes do we need no responsible person in Public life to my knowledge As proposed a Complete dismantlement of our nuclear warheads. A sufficient Arsenal must be maintained to preserve a credible deterrent against nuclear threats that May arise. How much is enough suppose we put matters in perspective. On aug. 6, 1945, an air Force bomber dropped a Little boy on Hiroshima. Relatively speaking that first atomic bomb was indeed a Little boy. It had a destructive Force variously reported at Only 13,000 to 18,000 tons of int. Do we recall the awesome work wrought by that Little boy in a fraction of a second the bomb killed 92,000 japanese. It pulverized everything within a radius of one half mile from the airburst. The fireball ignited fires a mile away. Within a few months radiation fallout killed thousands More. Three Days after Hiroshima on aug. 9, the United states dropped a fat Many on Nagasaki. That bomb killed 40,000 More. By 1952, nine years after the atomic attacks ended world War ii the United states had developed a Hydrogen bomb with the destructive Force of 12 million tons of int. In 1961 the soviet Union tested an icbms with the Impact of 58 million tons. Knowledgeable authorities have estimated that our nuclear Arsenal counting everything now carries the destructive capacity of 4 billion tons of int. And Hiroshima you will recall was levelled by the Little boy of 13,000 to 18,000 tons. Let me ask reverently soberly what in gods name do the superpowers propose to do with this fearful stockpile if any significant number of nuclear tipped missiles Ever were exchanged the destruction and loss of life would beggar comprehension. A few stunned stragglers might escape from subway shelters but they would emerge into an unrecognizable world a a world without food electricity running water transportation medical care. An Opportunity is immediately at hand to halt this grotesque Prospect of armageddon. Let us seize the moment. I would retain a Hundred warheads just in Case. As for the rest scrap them. C a Versal press Syndicate