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Bush channels Reagan on foreign policy
With his first major speech, the GOP front-runner sought to put a string of gaffes behind him.
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On the topic of Clinton's draft avoidance, the zinger list offered President Bush several options:

"During the war, Waldo played 'Where's Bill,'" read one prepared joke.

Another went: "Put it this way -- Vietnam Vets don't collect Bill Clinton trading cards."

Still another: "At Oxford, the governor experienced pre-traumatic stress syndrome."

Or another: "Mr. Clinton was going through a mid-war crisis."

One joke would have been spoken personally to Clinton: "Ever wake up in the middle of the night with Oxford flashbacks?"

But the zingers that could backfire the worst on Gov. Bush today are the ones scripted for his father to humble then-Gov. Clinton over his supposed ignorance of basic world knowledge.

"The Governor's a little light on geography," one of the Bush zingers observed. "He probably has trouble refolding a map of Arkansas."

"The Governor does have some foreign experience," another zinger read. "We know he's been to Moscow."

Ironically, too, a couple of zingers sought to portray Clinton's inexperience unfavorably in comparison with Gore's foreign-policy knowledge. These zingers now read like unintended endorsements of Gore, the Democratic front-runner in the 2000 campaign, who may well end up facing Gov. Bush in the general election.

To zing Clinton if he was struggling with a foreign-policy point, Bush was scripted to ad-lib, "Al Gore can't help you now."

Another comment would have asked voters: "On the campaign trail‚ when the Governor's asked a question, notice how he always turns to Al Gore for help. Will Al Gore have to chaperone him to summit meetings?"

In campaign 2000, young Gov. Bush has argued that a president is responsible only for sketching the big picture on foreign policy and that he has plenty of aides to fill in the details. So sometime over the next year, his father might be called on to explain whether he still thinks that it's vital for a president to have a wealth of international knowledge at his own fingertips.

Or maybe President Bush should think about buying his own son a world globe for Christmas. After all, in politics, often what goes around, comes around.
salon.com | Nov. 20, 1999

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