As an "issue", Harken is Still Dead
Democrats are leap-in-the-dark desperate -- far more than I'd previously imagined. There they were, swarming the Sunday public affairs shows harping on Harken, a buy-a-pig-in-a-poke, going over the same old ground, hoping to breath this corpse new life.
From the hue-and-cry, the raging frenzy and ferment on CNN, you'd never know this matter's been probed, sifted, panned, winnowed, mined, parsed, analyzed, scrutinized and dissected ad nauseam -- by SEC huntsmen, no less. Every Harken 'scent' had been followed, every Harken 'clue' had been sought, every Harken hole and corner pried into; in the chase for dirt on George W., no stone had been left unturned.
Conclusion? Much to the chagrin of inquisitors, there's no there, there. In fact, Bush's clean as a whistle. Yet no-one's been more closely or rigorously examined..
Then again, the Harken brouhaha has nothing to do with facts, nothing to do with ethics, propriety or minding one's P's and Q's, and everything to do with tearing to pieces/trampling to dust a man whose sterling reputation has defied every filthy attempt to besmirch it by political terrorists unconstrained by decency nor truth.
Bush is a man of honor, honest to a fault, virtuous -- always a cut above the rest, a pillar of the community. No one has produced a shred of evidence suggesting otherwise.
His moral bona fides with the public has Democrats fearing and trembling, his skyhigh polls strike terror in their hearts. Couple this with looming elections and small wonder Democrat blood runs cold these days.
While the media trollops say Democrats have seized a winning issue, portraying them as on the offensive, a tour of the political landscape, post-9/11, tells another story.
Democrats have struggled tooth-and-nail to morph Enron, WorldCom, Tyco et al from business to White House scandals, from shame and disgrace on Wall Street to skullduggery in the Oval Office. Crooked executives like Ken Lay and Bernard Ebbers, operatives like Skilling, Fastow and Kopper became, in a sense, All the President's Men.
Who's responsible for fraud at WorldCom?
Bush!
Who caused Enron's careen into bankruptcy?
Bush!
Who cooked the books at Tyco?
Bush!
Who shredded documents at Arthur Andersen?
Bush!
Who inflated profits at Xerox?
Bush!
Who inflated cable subscriptions at Adelphia?
Bush!
Has it worked?
Judging from the polls, the effort to make Bush the poster child of corporate greed has not only failed, it's backfired..
Accusing the President of being a white collar criminal, no better than Ken Lay or Bernard Ebbers, Democrats foolishly over-played their hand, and firmly positioned their party as being anti-business. This cedes the middle ground to Bush.
It's why, on the economy, Bush is still preferred over Democrats in Congress, who are seen as more interested in scoring partisan points and fixing blame than fixing the problem.
Question: Why hasn't it 'worked'?
Bush's stubbornly impervious popularity has Democrats and the media elite utterly flummoxed.
That his ratings have withstood the brunt of the most uninterrupted, unremitting raking fire his enemies could muster signals some unusual dynamic at work.
Actually, the phenomena is nothing more than the typical 'rallying 'round the flag' effect.
The colossal political capital and credibility Bush amassed for a formidable performance in the 9/11 aftermath essentially insulates him from such partisan attacks. His steady hand, even-temper and unflappable poise amid circumstances which would easily tax the skills of the most experienced leader won him the hearts and minds of many who, pre-9/11, were more or less on the fence. By so personally attacking the President as a drooling halfwit, pre-9/11, Bush's adversaries basically sealed their own fate.
In the eyes of most Americans, Bush's chorus of critics, having lied about him pre-9/11, don't have much credibility today.
In short, the more fire the President draws from his partisan enemies, the more the American people rally behind him, particularly if the attacks are generally perceived as unfair and/or politically motivated.
The principle is doubly true during times of war.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"
The White House won't pursue a national identification card system, despite renewed clamor from some people in government and industry for the idea after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. "We are not even considering the idea," said a Bush spokesman today.
The White House's chilly reception followed a recent surge of interest in the idea of national ID cards, including an offer this week from Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison to have his company bear software costs for such a system (see story).
from Computerworld, 09/27/01
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Yesterdays reversal is just pragmatism, I guess.
Regards
J.R.