Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 22, 1992 TAG: 9201220393
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BUSH AND THE ECONOMY
THE BUSH administration has fallen, but it can still get up.After months of indecision and self-delusion that the economy and public confidence would improve if he did nothing, the president has scrapped that strategy and the nation is about to see a new George Bush. He apparently is now listening to those calling for a new direction for his administration.
The president will approach the State of the Union address as he did his 1988 speech accepting the Republican Party's presidential nomination. His staff considers the speech a make-or-break event.
Tony Snow, the administration's director of speech writing, tells me the State of the Union address "will be the biggest speech of the next five years."
Snow pledges that in the future the president will not be "long on rhetoric," but that he will develop and present "real, honest programs that will produce results." The question is, will he ask those in his administration who have produced unrealistic programs to take a powder? Will he replace them with people who can achieve the new objectives, or will those who brought us higher taxes, bigger deficits and something resembling "malaise" be asked to stick around and try, try again? Unless he kicks out the authors of the budget disaster - starting with budget director Richard Darman - not many will believe he is sincere about change.
Snow promises the president will deliver a real economic-growth program and not "just bunk." Does this mean we should consider what has gone before as bunk? He's not about to answer that question, but he does tell me there will be "very good beef" in the speech, and that the key is to make sure people will believe the president.
Among the coming changes from the new, improved George Bush is a scrapping of such slogans as "kinder, gentler nation," which produced neither and allowed Congress to ride roughshod over the White House. Nothing encourages bullies more than those who refuse to fight.
It will be fine with most people if the president stops swinging from the lips and says "read my fists." And it will be fine if he announces a new economic program to end the downturn and restore consumer confidence. But this Congress, particularly in a presidential election year, is not about to do anything that makes George Bush look good. Democrats would just as soon the economy remain sour through the election so the president can't take credit for any recovery.
President Bush may not want to go after Congress while standing before members, but he is going to have to target individual members for defeat and campaign against them. He must portray all of his old buddies in Congress as "enemies" to economic progress and to the traditional values he has recently rediscovered. Nothing less will be believable. Nothing less will work.
For the president to be credible in his State of the Union address, he should do some confessing. Where did he go wrong, as in the disastrous budget agreement with Congress? Why should he have honored his "no new taxes" pledge, which had the support of most Americans?
The American people won't consider admission of mistakes as weakness. They will see it as a sign of strength, particularly if it is linked to a list of credible pledges and a request for help.
In the musical "My Fair Lady," Eliza Doolittle sings "Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words." She gets to the point where she sings in frustration: "Don't talk at all, show me."
The time for talk is over. In his State of the Union address and for the rest of this and, if he does it right, a second term, he had better show us! Los Angeles Times Syndicate