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Bush or Clinton?
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20565 |
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EDITORIAL
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| Issue
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11 / 1992 |
1,510 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
Why will I vote for George Bush for president? He has not earned reelection. Although he was correct and Clinton wrong with respect to the defense of Kuwait, he should have finished the job. Although both parties share blame for the poor state of the economy--the S&L scandal, the lack of competitiveness of American business, the reduction in defense contracts and service employment, overregulation, and the computer revolution that made so many million white-collar jobs redundant--Bush did not provide leadership on this issue.
Bush is a typical insider. He is a decent man, intelligent, and well informed. But he lacks an intuitive grasp of issues. He steers but does not take charge, and he is so impressed by the complexity of politics that he seems to lack deep beliefs.
Clinton does seem to have severe character flaws and to lack deep beliefs. He is clever without being wise. And he would probably be worse for the economy than Bush, although economics is so dismal a science that one cannot be sure of this.
Still, my usual rule for such cases is to throw out the governing rascals and to give the next set of rascals their chance. Why am I against following that rule in this case?
There are essentially two grounds: education and morals. Both are of almost supernal importance. Neither candidate is good on education. Clinton may be even a bit better on Head Start, and that is not lacking in importance. But Clinton, with minor exceptions, is the prisoner of the National Education Association, the greatest enemy education has in this nation.
Our current public school system is a failure, and we need a revolution as deep as the Russian revolution to cope with it. Although choice, which Bush favors in a far more serious sense that Clinton, is only a tangential answer, at least Bush is not bound to the present system. Clinton's so-called educational reforms were merely a confidence trick, designed to impress the public without threatening the educational establishment. Bush may not be good on this issue, but Clinton is part of the problem.
The second vital issue is morals, and here I am not referring to Clinton's adultery, about which he repeatedly lied, even though I do disapprove of it, but about the conception of choice to which he is committed publicly. I certainly do not take the position on abortion of the Republican
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