Copyright 2000 The Omaha World-Herald Company
Omaha
World-Herald
November 5, 2000, Sunday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. 9b; Guest Column
LENGTH: 1209 words
HEADLINE:
Bush's DUI Doesn't Excuse Gore
BYLINE: HAROLD W.
ANDERSEN
SOURCE: WORLD-HERALD CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
BODY:
Some Democrats are trying to make a big
11th-hour issue out of the disclosure that George W. Bush a quarter of a century
ago pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while under the influence of al-cohol.
Bush has publicly acknowledged that his past included occasions when he
drank more than he should have. So, he has said publicly, he quit drinking 14
years ago, the day after his 40th birthday.
Some Democrats are saying
that Bush should have disclosed his 25-year-old DUI guilty plea and that his
failure to do so removes "character" as a campaign issue. The implication is
that Bush supporters can no longer in good faith talk about Vice President Al
Gore's credibility problem.
So character should no longer be a campaign
issue? Let's talk about that.
Bush has said publicly that he realized he
was drinking too much in his earlier years and stopped. On the other hand, there
is no indication at all that Gore realizes that he deals entirely too much in
exaggerations and untruths and certainly no indication that he intends to stop.
(One explanation that has been offered in Gore's defense is that his compulsive
personality drives him subconsciously to exaggerations and untruths - hardly a
comforting explanation of a character trait.)
An example of what might
be called Gore's failure to mend his ways surfaced last week when the Democratic
nominee found a new way to misrepresent Bush's proposed across-the-board
reduction in federal income tax rates.
After weeks of alleging that
Bush's tax reduction plan is structured so as to make "the wealthiest 1 percent"
its primary beneficiaries, coupled with repeated criticism of "big oil" and "big
drug companies" and "big insurance companies," Gore had the hypocritical gall to
charge that it is Bush, not Gore, who has injected "class warfare" into the
campaign. Gore described the Bush plan as amounting to a redistribution of
wealth that constitutes "class warfare on behalf of billionaires."
The
facts, as Gore very well knows, are that the Bush plan would reduce tax rates
for all federal income taxpayers but with top-income taxpayers receiving a
smaller percentage reduction in rates than middle- and lower-income taxpayers.
The result would be that higher-income taxpayers - Gore's "wealthiest 1 percent"
- would wind up paying an increased proportionate share of the federal income
tax burden.
When candidate Gore hits full stride, credibility goes out
the window. For example, Gore said Bush's proposed elimination of the estate tax
- an idea that has received considerable support from Democrats as well as
Republicans in Congress - would give $ 25 billion a year to the wealthiest 3,000
families in America.
Some questions: How did Gore identify the 3,000
wealthiest families in America? Even if he had somehow identified the 3,000
wealthiest families, how would Gore know that these families' estate plans would
produce $ 25 billion a year in savings if the estate tax were repealed?
(Remember that a great many wealthy Americans leave the bulk of their estates to
charities or family foundations that are not subject to estate taxes.)
If repeal of the estate tax were to give the 3,000 "wealthiest"
families $ 25 billion a year in tax benefits (Gore's language suggests that this
would be an annual raid on the federal treasury), wouldn't it require an annual
new cast of 3,000 wealthiest families headed by someone who died during that
year?
Exaggeration or pure fiction or whatever, it's clearly another
demonstration of the fact that credibility too often takes a beating when Al
Gore takes off his coat and works to arouse crowds with his campaign rhetoric.
In its entirely predictable endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the
New York senatorial contest, The New York Times felt compelled to include this
language:
"She has clearly been less than truthful in her comments to
investigators Her fondness for stonewalling in response to
legitimate questions about financial or legislative matters contributed to the
bad ethical reputation of the Clinton administration We believe,
however, that Mrs. Clinton is capable of growing beyond the ethical legacies of
her Arkansas and White House years."
There's an interesting editorial
page perspective: Send Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Senate so that there she
can, among other things, serve a sort of apprenticeship in honesty.
Let's take another look at some important aspects of a proposed
constitutional amendment on Tuesday's ballot in Nebraska: Amendment 3, proposed
by the Legislature, would require that a proposal to amend the Nebraska
Constitution, to become effective, would have to be approved by the voters at
two elections rather than one.
We are told that the issue in question is
the initiative process, whereby proposed amendments can be placed on the ballot
by initiative petitions. (Note that I didn't say "citizen petitions." These
days, the common route to the ballot via petitions is to hire professional
circulators who come in from other states and have not the slightest interest in
- and frequently not the slightest knowledge about - the issue they've been
hired to bring to the ballot.)
The facts are that the two-election
requirement in Amendment 3 would apply to all proposed constitutional amendments
and predictably would affect many more amendments proposed by the Legislature
than petition-proposed amendments. Consider the experience of the past two
decades:
In elections from 1980 through 1998, 11 proposed constitutional
amendments were brought to the ballot through petition campaigns. That is
exactly one-fifth of the number of proposed amendments the Legislature placed
before the voters in that period. Some of the Legislature's 55 proposals could
be called "housekeeping" matters in regard to details of state government. But
others dealt with such basic issues as taxation, local government mergers,
pari-mutuel gambling, the writ of habeas corpus, equal protection under state
law and a requirement that legislative committees hold open meetings.
One argument advanced against the two-election proposal is that it would
keep voters from making prompt changes in the constitution if urgent need
developed. Such a need could be addressed by the Legislature by opening the way
for the corrective amendment to appear on the primary and general election
ballots in the same year or by calling special elections as the constitution
allows.
My nomination for the best laugh of the campaign:
Noting
that "famed Democratic diva" Barbra Streisand was to appear on ABC's "20/20"
telecast four days before the election, The Wall Street Journal said Republicans
should not be concerned about what might reasonably be interpreted as an ABC
effort to help Democratic candidates.
The Journal's conclusion: "Our
view is that any time a network wants to put Barbra Streisand on talking about
politics, the Republicans ought to consider it a soft-money contribution." The
writer, retired publisher of The World-Herald, may be reached at P.O. Box 27347,
Omaha, Neb., 68127. The telephone number is (402) 593-4553.
LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2000