2-4-6-8, Time to go triangulate. Bush’s speech was uninspired but very smart. He worked the room – especially the Democrats. The Moakley schmalz was particularly effective. Putting Ashcroft up to tackle racial profiling was exactly right. The line about the nobility of public service was such a perfect, deflected use of the Clinton hangover that W should give Dan Burton some coaching lessons. For those of us who have long realized Bush is a heavy-weight, no big surprise. But I’ll bet you there’s a significant uptick in public support for him – if only because he seems like such a straightforward, normal guy after you-know-who and because expectations are so low. Thanks, Molly! But I worry about the emphasis on the good that government can do. Not because he isn’t right – reflexive opposition to everything government does is silly. I worry just because that huge guzzling monster needs no encouragement. On the other side, the old Dems looked truly pathetic. They kept referring to the Reagan years as a ‘ditch’. Huh? But if they’re befuddled by Reagan, they’re crippled by Clinton. Whenever they mention working families, my mind immediately sees Beth Dozoretz taking the Fifth. That’s not fair, but I can’t help it. I can’t be the only one. They then have to be in favor of tight budgets and class warfare – the grinch meets Trotsky. Not an appealing combo. Or a winning strategy. They’ll have to wait this out like the Republicans did Nixon.
GREEN ROOM: As always, entertainment in the NBC waiting room. John McCain punched me in the gut and winded me. Terry McAuliffe came and went, a strange green slime on the floor remaining the only trace behind. Tim Russert breezed through, commiserating on the Wolff hatchet-job. (He’d been a victim of a half-assed job in the same mag by the same guy only a week before.) Don Evans, Commerce secretary and FOW, sat awkwardly among the hacks. Michael Grunwald, a smart, nice man who now has to put years of writing speeches for Clinton on his resume chatted earnestly. I started to go after him on the Clinton stuff, but it’s just cruelty now. Michael is clearly a decent guy dragged into a swamp. Similarly, all of Clinton’s lower apparatchiks seem to have taken this very hard. Wouldn’t you? Honestly, I’m not gloating. When you live in this town, you meet lots of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings, people who came here to do good or make a difference. Many of them worked for Clinton – although most of those who got real jobs had money connections. It’s really unpleasant to see what they’ve been put through. I think of Jake Siewert, a great guy and longtime acquaintance, having to defend all this sleaze, when he has nothing to do with it. In fact, one of the sickest aspects of Clinton’s blaze-out was the seemingly deliberate swipe he took at all the people who had ever been foolish enough to go to bat for him. You see the big machers on tv. They’ll survive. It’s the less famous ones who feel deflated, depressed. Clinton may have crushed the idealism of an entire Democratic generation. And as I saw McAuliffe breeze into his chauffeur-driven SUV in front of the capitol, I could all too easily see why.
The Dish 