Even the President concedes that he finds handling foreign



policy more "fun" than domestic issues. As he put it the day



before his swivel-hips remark, "People really basically want to



support the President on foreign affairs, and partisanship does,



in a sense, stop at the water's edge. Whereas on domestic



policy, here I am with Democratic majorities in the Senate and



Democratic majorities in the House, trying to persuade them to



do what I think is best. It's complicated."







It is not only complicated but dangerous as well. The U.S.



faces a mountain of nagging domestic needs and an abyss of debt.



On most of these problems, Bush has been inactive, if not



silent. At best, he has tinkered at the margins of America's



domestic ills. Rather than battle a national decline that some



fear has already begun, Bush is trying only to manage it. Read



my hips.







Officials in the Bush Administration offer various



rationales for their boss's disdain for domestic affairs:



historic developments abroad; divided government at home;



truculent Democrats on Capitol Hill; a $3 trillion national



debt; unending deficits; constitutional powers that, by allowing



the President to brush off Congress, make operating in the



foreign policy arena easier and more rewarding.







Good reasons all. But the real explanations may be found in



Bush's past. One is his almost pathological fear of the G.O.P.'s



right wing, a phobia that dates from his start in politics. The



other is a lack of conviction that renders him directionless at



home. From his earliest days in politics, he has risen by



loyally associating himself with powerful patrons, recasting his



views to suit those of the man at the top. As a candidate, he



has at one time or another positioned himself as a Goldwater



conservative, a moderate mainstream Republican, an effective



critic and then staunch supporter of Reaganomics -- whatever it



took to advance. And all along he has demonstrated a willingness



to compromise or jettison his positions to ensure conservative



support.







Two weeks ago, Bush stepped back from a 42-year commitment



to support for black colleges when he allowed a mid-level



Education Department lawyer to challenge the legality of public



support for minority scholarships. Many of Bush's aides



despaired at their boss's unnecessary capitulation to



conservative notions. Says one: "This is one of those few areas



where we actually have some convictions, and now it looks like



we don't have the courage to stand by them."







Bush is under pressure from the right again, this time to



adopt its new "reform" agenda, a campaign for tax cuts and term



limits on members of Congress and against affirmative action.



While the wisdom of this approach is under intense debate at the



White House, there are indications that Bush may try to mollify



the right for two more years, even if that means returning to



the racially divisive themes that helped elect him in 1988.











A Yalie Goes To Texas







Old habits die hard. In 1948, when Bush, then 24, moved his



family into the heart of the oil-rich Permian Basin, Texas was



a two-party state: liberal Democrats and conservative "Tory"



Democrats. Republicans just weren't in the picture. "If you were



a Texas Republican in the 1950s," recalls Don Rhodes, an old



Bush friend who now works as a personal aide to the President,



"you didn't let anybody know it." When Bush organized his first



Republican precinct primary, in Midland in the early '50s, only



three people showed up during 12 hours of voting -- the future



President, his wife Barbara and a lone Democrat who, Bush later



wrote, "stumbled into the wrong polling place."







For a budding Republican politician, this was a discouraging



situation. And if being in so tiny a minority wasn't



embarrassing enough, the minority itself was. The nascent Texas



G.O.P. was made up of farmers and ranchers and a group of newer



city dwellers whose numbers and affluence were growing along



with the Lone Star State's gas and oil interests. And then there



were "the crazies," a small but noisy claque of John Birch



Society regulars who never controlled the party but kept it off



balance for years with their ultra-right stands and defeatist



tactics. Though they were gradually eclipsed during the 1960s,



the crazies didn't go quietly. In 1960 one group roughed up



Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson in a celebrated incident at Dallas'



Adolphus Hotel. In 1968 another group criticized a Republican



candidate for appearing with his arm around a black football



player.







Accommodating this faction was bound to be tricky,



particularly for the son of an aristocratic Republican Senator



from Connecticut to whom moderate Republicanism was a kind of



birthright. Despite his 14 years in Texas, there was no



mistaking Bush's Eastern Establishment roots. His views on



foreign policy matched those of the locals well enough --



everyone, even Texas Democrats, was staunchly anticommunist. But



on domestic affairs, Andover-Yale was not Midland-Odessa.



Bush's moderate Republican views on states' rights, civil rights



and most social issues clashed with those of the Birchites. As



an old friend notes, "Bush was not sitting there asking himself,



`How do we impeach Earl Warren?'"







In 1964, a terrible year for Republicans, Bush lunged for



a seat in the U.S. Senate, challenging liberal Democrat Ralph



Yarborough. For Bush just to lose respectably required a shift



to the right. He called himself a "100%" Goldwater man and



lashed out at the 1964 Civil Rights Act, labor unions and the



1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He lost but garnered more votes



than any Republican in Texas history. That won him the notice



of Richard Nixon, who campaigned for him in 1966.







Bush later confessed to an Episcopal minister, John Stevens,



that he was ashamed of his pandering to the right in 1964. "I



took some of the far-right positions I thought I needed to get



elected," Stevens recollects Bush saying. "And I regret it. And



hope I never do it again."











A Schizophrenic Straitjacket







Of course he did do it again, although not immediately. In



1966 Bush ran for Congress from Houston as a moderate, attacking



"extremists" in his own party. "I want conservatism to be



sensitive and dynamic," he said, "not scared and reactionary."



That led some Republican groups to tag Bush as a liberal and



endorse his conservative Democratic opponent, Frank Briscoe. But



Bush prevailed, in part because Texas' Seventh District was then



one of the state's few Republican strongholds.







Bush nonetheless kept an eye on the right. In 1970, when he



gave up his safe seat to run for the Senate against Democrat



Lloyd Bentsen, he endured boos and catcalls at nearly every



campaign stop because he had supported a fair-housing law in



1968. Bush had indeed said aye to the bill, but only after



voting for a procedural amendment that could have killed it.



Paul Eggers, who campaigned with Bush that year as the G.O.P.



gubernatorial candidate, remembers his teammate's favorite



stump-speech line: "If you don't want to vote for me because of



open housing, then don't vote for me."







Most didn't. Bentsen won, and Bush spent the next six years



working for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in a variety of



positions in which his future did not depend on the whims of



voters. By 1980 Bush was running for the presidency, at first



criticizing his rival Ronald Reagan on economic and foreign



policy and then adopting most of Reagan's views once the



Californian put him on the G.O.P. ticket. Bush deep-sixed his



lament of "voodoo economics" and his support for the Equal



Rights Amendment. "Please do not try to keep reminding me of



differences I had" with Reagan, Bush pleaded with reporters.







As Vice President, Bush continued to swallow his many



objections to Reagan's policies. By 1986, when he began his own



race for the White House, Bush had shuffled to the right at the



suggestion of his campaignadvisers. "He took a lot of heat for



it," says one who backed the strategy, "and he didn't like it.



But it had the effect of putting enough deposits in those



accounts so that we didn't have to worry about them anymore."



And in 1988 Bush based his campaign on "no new taxes" and the



furlough of convicted murderer Willie Horton, wrapping the whole



unsavory package in the American flag. The campaign was so



inflammatory that Bush's old hero Barry Goldwater came out of



retirement and told him to knock off the foolishness and "start



talking about the issues." When he took office, Bush sought to



appeaseconservatives further by selecting a top domestic



adviser who could act as a kind of ambassador, fluent in the



language, totems and rituals of his party's suspicious right



wing. So he chose John Sununu.







The constant care and feeding of the right, says a senior



aide, "has given Bush not only an uncertainty about domestic



affairs but an alienation from them as well." Body language --



often Bush's most candid form of communication -- betrays his



discomfort with his predicament. Capable of approaching



eloquence when he speaks of a "Europe whole and free," Bush



delivers domestic speeches that are perfunctory and marred by



disingenuous gestures. When he held aloft a bag of crack cocaine



obtained after an intricate sting in Lafayette Square across



from the White House last year, he broke into an awkward smile,



as if to say, "Can you believe I'm doing this?" Says a former



adviser: "He's basically embarrassed to be a politician. It's



tacky. He has to do these horribly embarrassing things, and he



finds it distasteful, except as a competitive exercise."







Catering to the right has also turned the President into



something of a political contortionist. Even as he sought to



convince Americans that he was a kinder, gentler incarnation of



his predecessor, he was straining to appeaseconservatives by



opposing most gun-control efforts and proposing a constitutional



amendment against flag burning. By trying to walk simultaneously



in opposite directions, he put his presidency in a schizophrenic



straitjacket.







From the outset of his Administration, Bush calculated that



he could keep his poll numbers up merely by reminding voters



that he was aware of America's domestic problems. The White



House based this strategy on pollster Robert Teeter's surveys



and focus groups, which showed that while Americans were



concerned about drugs, education and the environment, they were



also deeply suspicious of any federal attempts to solve the



problems. Thus Bush promised to be the "education President" and



announced some badly needed educational goals last year. But for



nearly two years he retained in his Cabinet an Education



Secretary, Lauro Cavazos, who, by his own staff's admission, was



ineffective. He postponed politically painful choices on energy,



housing and transportation policy but has flown to the West



Coast twice in 14 months to plant a single tree in the name of



environmentalism. Midway through his term, some of his own aides



seem weary of the shell game. "You see a lot of blue-ribbon



panels and commissions around here," says a staff member. "It's



so much easier to do something innocuous than something real."







Even where Bush has made improvements in the American



condition, he has worked hard to keep them secret. Though Bush



privately regards the budget pact as his greatest domestic



achievement to date, he declared in public two months ago that



the deal made him "gag." Though Sununu rightly claims that the



clean-air legislation "will change America," the chief of staff



tried to cancel a public bill-signing ceremony for the landmark



measure. When old friends press Bush on this refusal to trumpet



his accomplishments, he responds by saying he will ultimately



be judged "by deeds, not words." But they suspect that Bush is



leery of calling attention to anything that might upset



conservatives.







Despite the President's constant wooing, the hard right



never seems satisfied. In the aftermath of the budget debacle,



a variety of conservative luminaries began clamoring about a



possible challenge to Bush in 1992. Though they stand no chance



of ousting Bush alone, the right-wingers could help Democrats



by sitting on their hands in 1992, narrowing G.O.P. margins in



key states. In an attempt to co-opt this volatile faction, Bush



will spend the next two years being "against" things



conservatives loathe: quotas, taxes, mandated government



benefits, anything that can be termed liberal or Democratic. The



idea isn't to get anything accomplished; it is to burnish Bush's



conservative credentials as he prepares for re-election. Says



an official: "There are some things you want to have a fight



on."







Quite a few things are worth fighting over, in fact, but all



too often Bush has found himself in the wrong corner. On issues



like extending opportunities to minorities and cutting the



deficit, for example, the President has permitted his indecision



and fear of the right to overrule his better instincts. It is



a pattern that, in the short term, may get him re-elected in



1992. It is not one that will, as Bush promised in his



nomination speech of 1988, "build a better America."

关键字:名人轶事

生词表: