From: AdmrlLocke@aol.com Sent: Friday, August 13, 1999 1:34 AM To: undisclosed-recipients: ; Subject: GrammNet: Will on Bush; My Forbes Intro GrammNet Issue 8/13/99.1 Dear Friend, Here it is, a bit cold off the presses: my Forbes letter from yesterday's issue of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, Thursday, August 12, 1999. It's adopted from the one-minute speech I gave to introduce Steve Forbes when he came to speak in Iowa City last week. I was going to send out the text of the speech at the time, but the press of campaigning and medical concerns didn't allow. At least this way the letter won't seem repetitious! I also pass along a column by George Will sent to me by an alert conservative friend. I think you'll find it valuable. Will sometimes adheres to the establishment too much for my taste, but he is one of the few people on television who will actually use the word "liberty," and in a serious, positive manner. That earns him some credit in my book. Sincerely, David B. Levenstam, CPA, MT, MA GrammNet is an independent newsletter, not affiliated with Senator Gramm. To subscribe to GrammNet, email me at AdmrlLocke@aol.com, with a message to the effect that you'd like to subscribe. GrammNet back issues available at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3390/ ------------------ To the Editor: One of the few privileges I get from being a free-lance political columnist is the chance to meet one-on-one with some of the presidential candidates. Steve Forbes was one of those candidates. What I found in my meeting with Forbes was a brilliant man with a quick sense of humor. I also found a shy man, but a shy man willing to endure the public spotlight because he believes so strongly in his bold vision for a rebirth of freedom in America. Forbes' bold vision includes real and fundamental reform of the income tax and Social Security. Forbes' flat tax will remove the working poor from the tax rolls and stop taxing the rest of us at the current high rates, which punish hard work, saving, and investment. To allow you to save enough to for your retirement, Forbes will transform Social Security from the current pyramid scheme, which taxes you to pay for some stranger's benefits, into a real, private retirement account for you. Forbes' bold vision will finally remove your Social Security money from the control of Washington politicians and bureaucrats. It's the kind of bold vision which catapulted Ronald Reagan into the White House in 1980, after people said he too conservative to win, and elected the first Republican Senate majority in 25 years. It's also the kind of bold vision we need in 2000 to win the White House and keep our Republican majorities in Congress. That's why I've decided to support Steve Forbes. David B. Levenstam Johnson County Coordinator, Forbes 2000 ------------------ Bush Lite By George F. Will Wednesday, August 11, 1999; Page A19 Fortunately for George W. Bush, the first issue of Talk magazine featured Hillary Clinton blaming her husband's glandular life on his grandmother. The resulting hilarity distracted attention from Tucker Carlson's profile of Bush in the same issue. Carlson, a writer for the conservative Weekly Standard, admires Bush, but his article has dismayed some Republicans, who understand how heavily invested their party is in Bush. They are not suffering buyer's remorse, but they are unsettled by what the profile suggests about the candidate's frame of mind and judgment. Bold type over Carlson's article says: "George W. Bush doesn't give a damn what you think of him. That may be why you'll vote for him for president." But few will think more of Bush after reading the article. Regarding Carlson's reporting of Bush's several uses of the f-word, Karen Hughes, Bush's communications director, who travels with him, says, "I don't remember those words being used." She says Bush agrees with those who say such language is inappropriate. Carlson, who says he remembers the words, quotes a Bush aide who says Bush "used to say 'f -- k' a lot more before this all started." Dwight Eisenhower could turn the air blue with barracks profanity. Ronald Reagan, too, knew the pleasures of salty language. But not in front of the children, meaning the press. The most disquieting aspect of Carlson's report of Bush's language is not what it says about Bush's ability to dignify politics after Clinton's squalor. Rather, it is that Bush may have been showing off for Carlson, daring to be naughty. He may be proving his independence, which Carlson likes, but it is independence from standards of public taste -- not the sort of independence many voters will be seeking in a successor to Clinton. Carlson reports asking Bush whether he met with any persons who came to Texas to protest the execution of the murderer Karla Faye Tucker. Bush said no, adding: "I watched [Larry King's] interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' " Carlson asked, "What was her answer?" and writes: " 'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.' " Hughes, who says Bush's decision not to commute Tucker's sentence was "very difficult and very emotional," says Carlson's report is "a total misread" of Bush. Carlson, who describes Bush as "smirking," says: "I took it down as he said it." Nothing remotely resembling the King-Tucker exchange that Bush describes appears in the transcript of King's hour-long Jan. 14, 1998, program. And it is difficult to imagine anything Bush said that Carlson may have "misread" that could do Bush credit. Again, what is troubling to Republicans who have plighted their troth to this man is not that they think he is a coarse or cruel man Rather it is that Carlson's profile suggests an atmosphere of adolescence, a lack of gravitas -- a carelessness, even a recklessness, perhaps born of things having gone a bit too easily so far. Bush has recently referred to Greeks as "Grecians," Kosovars as "Kosovians," East Timorese as "East Timorians," conservatism as "conservativism" and confused Slovenia with Slovakia. Such slips are understandable; none is a flogging offense. However, having committed them, Bush should take care not to exacerbate the suspicion that he has a seriousness deficit. When he was asked by Carlson to name something he isn't good at, he should not have said, "Sitting down and reading a 500-page book on public policy or philosophy or something." Bush told James Barnes of the National Journal, "I'm a decisive person" who doesn't "read treatises," and he told Carlson, "I'm not interested in process. I want the results. If the process doesn't yield the right results, change the process." All very brusque and hearty. But process, a k a constitutionalism and the rule of law, has its charms, especially after the Clintons' depredations. And Bush should not advertise any allergy to serious things. A critical mass of lightness in a candidate causes the public mind to snap closed, with the judgment, "Not ready for prime time." "You get the sense," Carlson writes, "that if Bush had chosen his own campaign slogan he would have printed bumper stickers that read GEORGE W. BUSH: SO SECURE, HE DOESN'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK OF HIM." But Jefferson, who knew something about declaring independence, recommended a "decent respect" for opinion. Bush is taking a political party along on his ride. He and it will care if on Nov. 7, 2000, people think of Gore or Bradley as an unexciting but serious professor and of him as an amiable fraternity boy, but a boy.