Dear #6, I think that your feeling about Bush sprang from the Democratic propaganda of the election in which Bush was portrayed as a lightweight - a dumbo - whereas Gore was experienced - someone of real Presidential timbre,
Gore left college and went to VietNam - I think as a journalist. After six months he came back to the US as a student in a seminary. A year passed, he left to go into politics. I think he became a congressman at about 29 and hasn't been outside of the Beltway since. So, it was expected he would eat this second term Governor of Texas, even though he had been re-elected in this Democratic State by a big majority. Yet, Bush won most of the debates. The couple of debates the pundits thought he lost also resulted in larger support for him in the polls. The concentration of democratic efforts was on his mispronunciations and such-like. As the campaign continued, Gore changed his demeanor in response to the poor results - but he wasn't much helped. Democrats thought that the election was a pushover. That the Republicans has erred in fielding an openly conservative candidate - expected to turn off a lot of people. None of this happened - people liked the young governor and weren't keen on what they considered a political hack (an arrogant political hack at that). Keith, none of this seemed to get to Britain. There, it seemed to me that the Democratic propaganda was swallowed whole. An American Conservative was considered to be Maggie Thatcher with an accent. They perhaps don't realize that there are conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans. At one point after the election, the Economist chided people for criticizing Bush's conservative stance, pointing out that he was elected as a conservative - what else was to be expected. Bush seemed to be able to do what needed to be done which was to conciliate - yielding some things, getting others. A recession was under way when he came to office. But, what nobody new was the real state of the economy. (Actually Classical Political Economists knew of the fundamental problems afflicting any economy - but that is never considered.) Also the dot.coms were indiscriminately enthusiastic along with their investors who seemed mostly to believe that investing only meant making money. The large companies built under enormous privileges, subsidies, legislative protection, and the rest, seemed to have nowhere to go except merging - whereupon they seemed to lose money and suffer trouble. (The latest big merger between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq is in trouble even as I write.) The tax cut finally won by Bush wasn't a huge one but it put a few hundred dollars in the hands of the American consumer - the latest palliative for handling recessions. Perhaps everyone had forgotten that when Clinton introduced "the largest peace-time tax increase in history " (Republicans) it didn't seem to affect the economy. So, why should we expect much of an opposite affect when we reduce taxes? Obviously, anything will have some effect - but a significant one? Probably not. Then came 9/11. Then, Bush was no longer a conciliatory President, but a world leader - and we were in trouble. However, would Gore have behaved differently? Harry _________________________________________ Brad wrote: >Harry Pollard wrote: >[snip] > > The question, which may soon be answered for us (keep ALL your > > fingers crossed) continues to be - is Bush still a conciliator, or has he > > been infected by Presidential hubris? >[snip] > >Bush is #2. Who is #1? (ref.: "The Prisoner") > >Who is pulling Bush-puppet's strings? Cheney? > >Or is he improbably enough, but certainly The Invisible Hand >is capable of such things... really [just] a loose >cannon on the deck [armed with weapons of mass destruction]? > >\brad mccormick ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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