Keith, senior aides to Bush have let it be known that he will sign Sen. Sarbane's bill if it passes but he doesn't want to say that in public because it means undercutting the House version dutifully passed by his loyal rubberstampers there, under the name of Rep. Oxley. Some hardliners will be equally distraught that he uttered the words "self-regulation is not enough" but I don't think too many knowledgeable voters will be fooled for very long. CNN's Lou Dobbs was quick to label the speech lukewarm and totally unsatisfactory and that's a broadcast message heard round the world. Excuse the coarse vernacular, but sometimes this is the best language to use: I thought his speech as about as powerful as a bucket of warm spit. It's pitiful to watch and listen to the man whose own aides had billed this as a "major address" so that he could claim the momentum for reform from the Senate and/or Democrats, mumble through a speech in a mostly four and five syllable phrases, followed by a pause, then another four or five syllables and pause, followed by another. This has nothing to do with complaints about his alleged dyslexia, but explicitly a failure to use cadence and image from the bully pulpit he was supposed to be using. This man's eyes were sleepy, he used colloquial head turns and eye blinking that convey folksy comfort but he could not mount an iota of righteous indignation. His whole body language said "I don't want to be here" and "I'm just reading this". One of the factors we should be honest about is that you can pay lip service in public and then instruct your minions on Congressional committees to not show up for a quota meetings, or leave early before the vote, which in effect stalls the progress without it showing up on record as a no vote, a pigeon hole or being tabled until the next session. Then you can conveniently blame the Democrats, Congress, the Senate, or your mother-in-law and some people will believe it. Bush's comments that all this happened before him is nonsense, trying to not take responsibility when he is the guy in charge, regardless of what happened prior to his being sworn in. His reference to the excessive profit mentality of the "late 90s" was laughable and juvenile, not even good political cover. We have an understanding here with the changeover and lag about national budgets: a new man may inherit a budget and its restrictions from the last guy, but the minute he signs anything new or makes the first speech giving directions about his new budgets, it becomes his budget. It became Bush's budget and Bush's administration the minute that tax bill was signed and there is no getting around it. He promised a New Tone in Washington and so far, it's tone deaf. Didn't this guy want this job pretty badly? More importantly than even the stock market and investor confidence, the staining of corporate capitalism in America is going to, if it hasn't already, affect US foreign policy and global markets overseas, as John Balzar writes in the LA Times from China. At the very moment our allies are ready to pounce on us for isolationist trade practices and unilateral policy decisions, when we need confident allies in the war on terrorism, wrist-slapping corporate scandals only undermines our ability to say we are a superpower and you should follow our lead. Where were the specifics? What about stock options? What does this say to struggling Third World democracies? That dictatorships aren't so bad, after all and graft is SOP the world over? Must have made some world leaders laugh at this less-than-convincing performance. No, the POTUS and so-called leader of the free world must have fire in the belly and ice in the veins to overcome his own reputation and that of the very community with which he most closely associated (No, not frat house cheerleaders). We always knew he wasn't a Churchill or even Clinton in his showmanship, and after 9/11 we accepted his folksiness, but this was not the time or place to be an awshucks lukewarm kinda guy. He's no Teddy Roosevelt either just because he was photographed carrying the biography last year. Just as Nixon's trip to China was breathtaking because he was a Republican at a time when his party opposed that move, Bush must confront the GOP image of being too cozy with business, and apply himself more precisely because of who and what he is and has been associated with. Grade: D+ Karen Watters Cole
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 12:31 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Bush's procrastination In England, whenever the government is faced with something controversial it appoints a Royal Commission, staffing it with the 'Great and the Good'. This has the effect of placating those who are calling for action and the government can then bury the matter for several years before it needs to make up its mind. It seems to me that President Bush has just adopted a similar tactic. Although he made a vigorous speech on the matter of company fraud and threatened all sorts of tough proposals (many of which are already in hand by the SEC, etc), his main message is that he is going to appoint a Task Force. This will have the effect of allowing reports of his own suspicious share dealings in the early 1990s with Harken Corp to recede further into the background. (He's also still refusing to release records of Cheney's secret negotiations with Enron of some years ago.) It's difficult for someone on this side of the water to judge the mood of Americans right now, but the anger over here about financial scandals of a similar nature that have occurred here in the last two or three years is such that Bush might be making a bad mistake unless he replaces words with effective deeds pretty quickly -- such as supporting the legislation proposed by both Democrats and Republicans and now being debated in Congress. He'll never have a better opportunity of showing decisive leadership, but somehow I think he'll fluff it. Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
