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Jewish World Review Jan. 14, 2000 /7 Shevat, 5760

Ann Coulter

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The Gore Buggernaut

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- IT'S SUCH A DELIGHT to watch the Democrats struggle with their own Bob Dole problem: This time they're the ones stuck with an "inevitable nominee" who happens to be a bungling moron. Columnist Joe Sobran has taken to calling the vice president's comedic campaign "The Gore Buggernaut," at least since Gore's self-created imbroglio about using gays in the military as a litmus test for his Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Buggernaut's latest "no controlling legal authority" clarification concerned Gore's stated position in a debate last week that he "would insist, before appointing anybody to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that that individual support my policy (of allowing openly gay individuals to serve). And, yes, I would make that a requirement."

Soon thereafter, however, Gore and his more shameless flunkies were falling all over themselves insisting that all Big Al meant was that the members of his Joint Chiefs of Staff would have to publicly support the president's policies -- whatever their private beliefs, in which Gore, of course, had no interest whatsoever. In other words, he would insist that his chiefs of staff not sabotage the president's policies.

If that's what he meant, then he's an idiot. By law, the president's chiefs of staff have to abide by the military policies of the commander in chief. So why, in the middle of a presidential debate, was he "insisting" as a categorical matter that members of his administration be required to follow the law? He may as well have said: "I would insist that there be no quartering of soldiers in a Gore administration. And, yes, I would make that a requirement."

There's been so much excitement over the Gore Buggernaut's litmus test for his chiefs of staff that his campaign manager's ridiculing of Colin Powell as an Uncle Tom has gone almost unnoticed. Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile was last in the news for having slashed Naomi Wolf's preposterous campaign salary. Presumably Brazile figured Gore didn't need to be paying any "alpha male" psychobabbler $15,000 a month to help him sound stupid. In a pinch, Brazile's able assistance would suffice.

"The Republicans," Brazile said recently, "bring out Colin Powell and J.C. Watts because they have no program, no policy. ... They have no love and no joy. They'd rather take pictures with black children than feed them." (And don't forget, Al Gore actually invented joy.) A few weeks earlier, Brazile had announced that she "will not let the white boys win in this election." To watch what she's doing for white boy Al Gore, she seems serious about that claim.

It's hard to follow her thought process on this point. Did Al Gore become black when Hillary Clinton became Jewish? Or is Jesse Jackson, another presidential candidate Brazile once worked for, waiting in the wings out there?

In any event, Brazile won't be stopping white boy George Bush from winning this election the way she's helping stop white boy Al Gore -- from the inside. While she was working on the Dukakis campaign in 1988, Brazile accused W's father of being an adulterer, telling reporters, for example: "The American people have a right to know whether or not Barbara Bush will share a bed with her husband." (But they don't have a right to know if the president himself is fooling around with interns and perjuring himself about it in contempt of court.) For this, the Dukakis campaign fired her.

But it's a brave new political world out there. Just ask Kathleen Willey. Or Donna Brazile, for that matter. Brazile justifiably complained to the Los Angeles Times that while her statements often seem to elicit negative reactions, similar remarks made by James Carville do not.

Still, Brazile is not without her Democratic lap dogs. Peter Fenn, Democratic strategist and Gore campaign adviser, said Brazile's slur that Colin Powell and J.C. Watts would "rather take pictures with black children than feed them" was Brazile's way of trying "to be inclusive." (You can look it up: Fox News, "Hannity and Colmes," Jan. 5, 2000.) So that's what Democrats mean when they babble about "inclusiveness": racial hatred!

Colin Powell did not appreciate the inclusiveness, saying he was "disappointed and offended" by Brazile's comments. J.C. Watts called her inclusive statements "racist."

But Al Gore stood by his campaign manager's remarks, even reiterating them: "Having General Powell and Congressman Watts in the Republican Party is, in fact, no substitute for an agenda that supports all of our people, including African-Americans. That is what Donna was trying to say."

Now if Gore could only figure out what he was trying to say.


JWR contributor Ann Coulter is the author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton.

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