Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review July 27, 2000 / 24 Tamuz, 5760

George Will

George Will
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


. . . Both Radical and Reassuring


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- GEORGE W. BUSH burnished his credentials as presidential material by making a vice presidential selection sure to elicit the judgment that his running mate is more qualified than he is to be president. That judgment was predictable because it is indisputable. It speaks well of Bush's character and confidence that he does not care.

Two years ago, probably at least a plurality among thoughtful Republicans believed that Dick Cheney would be the best president the party could produce in this cycle. But you cannot steal first base, and you cannot become president without the political strengths, including family assets, that Bush brought in crushing abundance to the nomination contest.

Now, in the first decision he has made with much of the country actually paying attention (perhaps paying attention for the last time until after the Olympics end on Oct. 1), Bush has done something simultaneously reassuring and radical. The choice of Cheney reassuringly confirms the impression that Bush (like Reagan) is someone who recognizes quality, and is comfortable around people more experienced and, in their areas of expertise, more able than he. The choice of Cheney is radical because of the rarity--can you think of a comparable one?--of a vice presidential selection based so much on merit.

Gore, in the whatever-it-takes spirit that has caused him to adopt serial identities (Alpha Male Al, Earth Tones Al, Populist Al, etc.), may make a purely tactical choice, picking a running mate entirely for the difficulty it causes Bush in the quest for 270 electoral votes. Bush seems convinced that California, which has one-fifth of 270 votes (54), and which his father in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996 did not seriously contest, is winnable. Gore cannot get to 270 without California, so he might try to take it out of play by picking Gov. Gray Davis, the only man on the planet so programmed he makes Gore seem the soul of authenticity. Or if Gore's polls show Florida (25 electoral votes) winnable, he may pick Sen. (and former governor) Bob Graham, thereby making Bush burn up resources (time, money) that could better be spent in the "Jersey City to Kansas City" belt where the election is apt to be decided.

Either choice would be, like the chooser, crashingly conventional. And either would underscore the novelty of Bush's choice, the first ever of a running mate whose state (Wyoming, which Bush could not lose if he tried to) has the minimum three electoral votes.

Bush is, and will be until the polls close on Nov. 7, a somewhat vulnerable candidate because there still hovers over him a cloud of the country's gathered doubts about his gravitas. These doubts can be drawn down like a cloudburst of acid rain by minor mistakes that the media will eagerly magnify. But if there can be derivative gravitas--seriousness by association--these doubts have been lessened by Bush's choice of Cheney.

During the Reagan and Bush administrations Cheney's wife, Lynne, was a superb chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, where she was an astringent critic of the dumbing down and political corruption of culture, especially in higher education. But her husband's demeanor--that of a librarian in need of a nap--will complicate Al Gore's only authentic campaign style--fright-mongering about Bush's candidacy being a vehicle for various extremisms.

Furthermore, Bush's choice of Cheney should give Gore pause if, as has been depressingly (because plausibly) reported, he is seriously contemplating trying to purchase Illinois' 22 electoral votes by offering to put Dick Durbin, that state's comprehensively undistinguished senator, a heartbeat away from Lincoln's chair. C-Span viewers know Durbin as an indefatigably partisan debater, and so he is, perhaps, a born vice presidential nominee. But Gore cannot relish the thought of the contrast between Durbin and Cheney on the same stage.

By anointing Cheney this week, Bush drained his convention of the only drama contemporary conventions have. Long ago, when extravagant political rhetoric was in season, a convention was an occasion for a party to loosen its corset and ladle on praise of the nominee. A convention presented its hero as the master of the tides and cause of bumper crops--a complex man of many layers, like an artichoke, with a scrumptious heart. Such bloviation has gone out of fashion, so perhaps we will be spared attempts to portray Bush as other than what his choice of Cheney confirms that he is--a competent, decisive executive who has risen in the family trade (politics), and who has a gift for finding good help.



Comment on JWR contributor George Will's column by clicking here.

Up

07/06/00: Harry Potter: A Wizard's Return
07/03/00: Recalling the Revolution
06/29/00: An Act of Judicial Infamy
06/26/00: Life, Liberty and ... the Pursuit of Foxes
06/21/00: Fumble on Prayer
06/19/00: The unified field theory of culture
06/15/00: Schools Beset by Lawyers And Shrinks
06/12/00: Missile Defense Charade
06/07/00: The Grandparent Dissent
06/05/00: Liberal Condescension
06/01/00: Great Awakenings
05/30/00: Suddenly Social Security
05/25/00: Forget Values, Let's Talk Virtues
05/22/00: AlGore the Hysteric
05/15/00: Majestic Avenue
05/11/00: Just How Irrational Is the Exuberance?
05/08/00: Home-Run Glut
05/04/00: A Lesson Plan for Gore
05/01/00: The Hijacking of the Primaries
04/28/00: The Raid in Little Havana
04/24/00: Tinkering Again
04/17/00: A Judgment Against Hate
04/13/00: Tech- Stock Joy Ride
04/10/00: What the bobos are buying
04/06/00: A must-read horror book
04/03/00: 'Improving' the Bill of Rights
03/30/00: Sleaze, The Sequel
03/27/00: How new 'rights' will destroy freedom
03/23/00: Death and the Liveliest Writing
03/20/00: Powell is Dubyah's best bet
03/16/00: Free to Be Politically Intense
03/13/00: Runnin', Gunnin' and Gambling
03/09/00: And Now Back to Republican Business
03/06/00: As the Clock Runs Out on Bradley
03/02/00: Island of Equal Protection
02/28/00: . . . The Right Response
02/24/00: Federal Swelling
02/22/00: Greenspan Tweaks
02/17/00: Crucial Carolina (and Montana and . . .)
02/10/00: McCain's Distortions
02/10/00: The Disciplining of Austria
02/07/00: Free to Speak, Free to Give
02/02/00: Conservatives in a Changing Market
01/31/00: America's true unity day
01/27/00: For the Voter Who Can't Be Bothered
01/25/00: The FBI and the golden age of child pornography
01/20/00: Scruples and Science
01/18/00: Bradley: Better for What Ails Us
01/13/00: O'Brian Rules the Waves
01/10/00: Patron of the boom
01/06/00: In Cactus Jack's Footsteps
01/03/00: The long year
12/31/99: A Stark Perspective On a Radical Century
12/20/99: Soldiers' Snapshots of the Hell They Created
12/16/99: Star-Crossed Banner
12/13/99: Hubert Humphrey Wannabe
12/09/99: Stupidity in Seattle
12/06/99: Bradley's most important vote
12/03/99: Boys will be boys --- or you can always drug 'em
12/01/99: Confidence in the Gore Camp
11/29/99: Busing's End
11/22/99: When We Enjoyed Politics
11/18/99: Ever the Global Gloomster
11/15/99: The Politics of Sanctimony
11/10/99: Risks of Restraining
11/08/99: Willie Brown Besieged
11/04/99: One-House Town
11/01/99: Crack and Cant
10/28/99: Tax Break for the Yachting Class
10/25/99: Ready for The Big Leagues?
10/21/99: Where honor and responsibility still exist
10/18/99: Is Free Speech Only for the Media?
10/14/99: A Beguiling Amateur
10/11/99: Money in Politics: Where's the Problem?
10/08/99: Soft Thinking On Soft Money

© 2000, Washington Post Writer's Group