I got plenty o` nuttin` and nuttin`s plenty for me.
-Ira Gershwin, ”Porgy and Bess”
I once knew a guy who could do only one thing at a time. I often admired him for being so focused, although he carried it to the point of
ridiculousness.
For example, his meals. He ate one dish at a time. He would eat all of each vegetable or meat before turning to another; so rigid was this habit that he painstakingly ate each pea individually. Sitting at the table, he would climb the scale of culinary tastefulness dish by dish, happily finishing with a sugary delight.
This behavior extended to all parts of his life. Each day was allotted for some chore, to the exclusion of all others. His existence was as terribly ordered as it was terribly dull. He followed his routine so assiduously that he could never quite figure out the whole of his existence.
But here`s the irony. He admitted one day that if he didn`t order his life in this way, he would be a total mess, disorganized, sloppy and peripatetic. He got a grip on life with excessive organization. He is happier for it.
It was no surprise that George Bush, the peripatetic president, has decided to organize his administration and his re-election campaign in the same way. It`s one issue a week from now on, we`re told, beginning with education, trade and who knows what next. If Bush liked broccoli, he now would be eating it one spear at a time.
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So for the next 25-odd weeks, we will go from one policy course to another as Bush attempts to build up a vision, one spear at a time. Instead of ABC-TV`s ”Person of the Week,” the country is about to be bombarded with a White House program called ”Policy of the Week.”
I suppose the White House considers that this is about all the country can swallow on such key individual issues as health care, jobs, taxes, the environment, aid to the republics of the former Soviet Union, economic growth, competitiveness, regulation and the like. Our attention spans are thought to be too short to absorb more than one idea in a single week.
If it didn`t smack of political manipulation, it would be a grand idea. Americans have been starved for leadership on these issues for many months, and it is good to see the White House entertain ideas other than ”the market will take care of it.”
But it looks too much like an effort to differentiate the administration from Democratic major issues than a new set of goals for the country. Judging from what has happened so far, there is no uniform thread running through these ideas that would give them some overall coherence.
For example, Bush stole Bill Clinton`s idea for a lifetime college loan for students. Evidence indicates that he turned his back on conservatives who wanted him to emphasize his plan for parental choice, rather than this policy scheme designed and engineered in Democratic think tanks.
Indeed, it would be interesting to know what, if any, overall policy guidance is dictating these weekly policy statements. I suspect there is none, except what will garner the best political advantage for the president. In an election year, I suppose, one can expect no less.
A policy a week can build quickly into a huge pantheon of individual proposals on the key issues of the day. They can be unveiled with impunity, since there is little danger that any of them will get passed. They can be conveniently used to whack Congress over the head for failing to pass any of them, which is undoubtedly what Congress will do. In this sense, they would be the tools of attack politics.
They also are designed to give Bush some political protection against the charge that he stands for nothing. Here, he will say, you want a policy?
Here`s more policies than you know what to do with.
I`m not so sure this will work. Americans don`t pay nearly as much attention to details of various proposals as the White House believes. To them, presidential proposals are a dime a dozen, particularly with
governmental gridlock controlling matters here. The president`s detail-laden State of the Union speech largely has been forgotten.
In this post-Cold War era, where the global economy dominates, people are seeking general direction and guidance from Washington, rather than a new policy fillip every week directed by presidential politics. They`d like a president who can serve as their captain, not as one of his staff aides.
Perhaps out of this thicket of weekly messages, a clean, pure Bush administration theme will emerge. Right now, it looks like many themes, drawing from left, right and middle, all adding up to confusion.