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This is November, 2000...
Thanks to Roger Ebert for an effective interpretation of George W Bush, courtesy of the Chicago Sun Times.
....
We are sleepwalking toward Election Day. Beguiled by George W. Bush's easy smile and casual indifference to the details, we are on the brink of electing him to office. This isn't choosing a president, it's casting the lead in a sitcom about the presidency.
Bush's performances in the debates--the third in particular--suggest he is incompetent to hold the most important office in the world. His answers were those of a student who has not done his homework, desperately repeating platitudes while praying for the teacher to let him sit down.
Of all the exchanges, the most disturbing was his reply to Norma Kirby, who asked about affirmative action. Bush is against affirmative action. You know it, I know it, and Bush knows it--but he would not say so.
He fielded the question with abstract evasions. You would not guess that race was involved. He talked about "quotas," as if that was what affirmative action meant. Gore pointed out that quotas were illegal. Bush delivered a torturous parable about "affirmative access"--a meaningless phrase. "If affirmative action means what I just described, what I'm for, then I'm for it," he said, knowing it didn't. When Gore asked if he was for "what the Supreme Court says is a constitutional way of having affirmative action," he appealed to moderator Jim Lehrer to blow the whistle.
Some pundits criticized Gore for going after Bush on this issue. I believe Gore usefully exposed Bush's unwillingness to give a plain answer to a plain question, and raised the possibility that Bush does not know what the Supreme Court definition says. Which one do we want as president? A man who stays on the attack when convinced he is right, or a man who whines to the teacher?
"He talks like the rest of us," one Bush supporter said approvingly after that debate. Why shouldn't we expect the president to be smarter, and talk better? Is it a plus that Bush knows less than Gore, and cannot express himself as clearly?
Another exchange that haunts me involves capital punishment. Texas runs a Death Row assembly line. On average, one person every two weeks has been executed during Bush's term. He assured his questioner he reviews each case carefully. A study of his office records, reported by the New York Times, shows he has devoted an average of 15 minutes per execution.
Repeated studies have charged that Texas has a shaky judicial and appeals system, with court-appointed attorneys sometimes turning up drunk or falling asleep in court. Bush should be vigilant about the executions he approves. He is said to have a short attention span and to avoid all reading of any length or difficulty, but, come on--wouldn't you expect him to review the Death Row cases out of simple human curiosity? A man will die, and you are his last resort. Doesn't that hold your attention?
The support for Bush puzzles me. Read the transcripts and you will see he does not answer, he does not engage and he will not clearly say where he stands on core issues. When he has an unpopular position, as on gun control, he nods to the true believers, and won't tell the rest of us. Would his Supreme Court be anti-choice? Of course, but he won't say so.
The most sobering indictment of Bush's judgment is his decision to offer himself for president. If you were as informed and articulate about the issues as Bush is, would you have the nerve to run?
©Copyright 2000, Chicago Sun-Times Inc