April 29, 2001

Bush’s Hundred Days Honeymoon Surprises Critics

To be perfectly fair, we should not measure President Bush’s first 100 days in office until June 3 -- inasmuch as he was denied 35 days of on-site preparation by the hoopla over Florida’s vote count.

The hundred-day nonsense began with President Franklin D. Roosevelt who took office March 4, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, the unemployment rate was 3.2 percent according to World Almanac. The rate hit an all time high of 24.9 percent for the first year of Roosevelt’s administration.

During Roosevelt’s first hundred days, he rammed 15 major legislative bills through Congress. In addition, he issued 45 executive orders creating a host of "alphabet agencies" to regulate every aspect of the economy.

The U.S. Supreme Court threw out most of Roosevelt’s spree as unconstitutional, and Congress repealed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which caused the Depression in the first place.

President Bill Clinton squandered his honeymoon with squabbles over gays in the military, record tax increases and a complicated womb-to-tomb healthcare plan that would have bankrupt the country.

Bush’s first days discombobulated his critics. They predicted disaster. However, he has performed well – "better than expected" is the grudging mantra.  

Dubya’s most impressive accomplishment is one that can’t be measured – civility.

Even as the Democratic National Committee crafts a TV hate-series about him, Bush makes nice with such attack dogs as Daschle, Gephardt, Bonior, Boxer, Schumer, Waters, Rangel and the Congressional Black Caucus.

As the first MBA-degree president, Bush delegates authority to experienced subordinates. Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld know what they are doing; and Bush lets them do it.

Another intangible asset of our new president is the absence of show-boatism. When our downed aircrew on Hainan Island came home – after adroit diplomacy – Bush didn’t rush to Seattle to hog the spotlight. That would have ratcheted up the foregoing incident to confrontational status with China.

Bush reserved his clout for the big issue – China’s nuclear missiles aimed at our democratic allies, Taiwan and Japan.

When the president was interviewed by five prominent TV reporters regarding his first hundred days, Bush spoke plainly.

Bush said he supported the "one China" policy the adversaries agreed to in 1992. However, he emphasized he would do "whatever it took" under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to help defend that country if China tried to take it by force.

The treaty states: "It is the policy of the United States to …. resist any resort to force that would jeopardize the security or social or economic system of the people on Taiwan."

Presidents since 1979 have deliberately followed a policy of "strategic ambiguity" regarding U.S. military intervention under the treaty. Would we or wouldn’t we?

Clinton sent warships and planes into the area when China tried to skew a Taiwan election by lobbing missiles into the Taiwan Strait.

Bush countered the belligerent attitude of China about returning our surveillance plane. He decided to give Taiwan eight submarines it requested but withheld Aegis anti-missile systems.

Message to Beijing: we will simply match your threat for now but will keep big stuff at the ready. No ambiguity there.

Paul D. Wolfowitz, now deputy defense secretary, said in a 1999 speech that U.S. policies of previous ambiguity were misunderstood and led to wars with Iraq and North Korea.

Bush has been forthright in other matters coming before him in his first hundred days initiatives:

• Sold his tax cut to both houses of Congress and agreed to accept a subsequent compromise of amount.
• Submitted a $661 billion budget for the coming fiscal year that is an increase of 4 percent – the current rate of inflation. Big spenders in Congress are squealing like stuck pigs.
• Scrapped the Kyoto environment plan that mostly imposed restriction on the United States for carbon-dioxide emissions.  
• Gave a go-ahead to tap critical oil reserves in a tiny part of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
• Invited faith-based institutions to submit plans for rendering social services with government help.
• Attended a western hemisphere summit conference in which he outlined plans for free-trade agreements.

Dubya must be doing well. Various polls give him approval ratings of 63 percent – six points higher than that for Clinton at the same mark.

Amiability and straight talk has its virtues.

Still 2,820 days to go.

PARTING SHOTS

Paxton Quigley, a Beverly Hills security specialist, makes a SuperBra (capital B) holster for a .38 caliber snub-nose revolver. It is not clear whether the device is meant for hold ups or push ups.

 * * *

Sen. Hillary Clinton held a housewarming at her $2.5 million Washington, D.C., town house. Guests paid $1,000 each to help pay off campaign debts of a lady friend. The cost to sleep overnight in the guest room has not yet been set.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers