We've been "reading the lips" of George Bush for months, and Ifeel like an illiterate. Because I can't figure out who Bush reallyis other than a man who seems willing to say and do almost anythingto become president.
I can't escape the feeling that behind the slick packaging ofBush as wimp-turned-gunslinger, and the disgustingly dirtycampaigning, there is a real George Bush that we won't learn aboutuntil after he wins the election next Tuesday - if the pollsters areright in predicting that he will triumph.
The George Bush who sees the Oval Office within his grasp soundsfar different on taxes, crime, race and other issues than the manwhose lips a lot of us have watched move for two decades - often withsomeone else pulling the strings.
In 1980, when he tried to wrest the Republican nomination fromRonald Reagan, Bush described as "voodoo" the Reagan promise to cuttaxes drastically, spend an extra $1.5 trillion on the Pentagon andstill balance the budget. It was "voodoo." It brought on adevastating recession, and it put America $2.8 trillion in debt.
But now comes Bush calling for a reduction in the capital gainstax from 33 to 15 per cent; for the building of costly new weaponssystems; for tax breaks for oil drillers - all this with a promisethat there will be billions for education and day care, because thered ink will dry up. This country will fall into what Bush calls"deep doodoo" if he is serious about his new version of voodoo.
I know personally that Bush is no racist. Only an obsessivelust for the power of the presidency could have caused him to allowthe image-killers around him to appeal to the worst kind of fear andbigotry in order to smear Michael Dukakis, portraying theMassachusetts governor as the candidate of "rapists, murderers andchild molesters."
Many Maryland GOP leaders are in an uproar because statechairman Daniel E. Fleming put out a fund-raiser leaflet suggestingthat Dukakis' "real" running mate is a black murderer named WillieHorton, who raped a white woman after escaping from theMassachussetts prison furlough program. "Outrageous" and"un-American," Republican Rep. Constance A. Morella said of theleaflet. "I'm livid," said Joyce L. Terhes, the GOP first vicechairperson. "Totally out of bounds," said James A. Baker III, Bush'scampaign manager.
But when NBC's Tom Brokaw asked Bush about the leaflet, the vicepresident virtually dismissed it as part of "the rough-and-tumble" ofthe campaign.
We can say that Bush didn't put out or directly approve thispiece of slime, but he seems content to reap whatever votes come fromthis outrageous appeal to fear and racism. We can say that Bush didnot orchestrate the other dirty elements of his campaign. But can wesay that the people who did will not become Bush's "palace guard,"espousing the meanness that have marked their rush to power?
I never thought of "the old George Bush" as someone who wouldforce a 12-year-old girl, raped and impregnated by her father, tocarry the baby to term. But Bush's running mate, Dan Quayle, saysthat is the magnitude of the Bush-Quayle opposition to abortion.
Is candidate Bush taking the voodoo tax line just to please fatcats who pretend that prosperity trickles down? Or the inflammatoryapproach to race and crime to hang on to the "Reagan Democrats"? Orthe abortion-school prayer-Pledge of Allegiance gambit just toplacate the far-right Republicans? We won't know until after we havemade a fateful choice.
Whether the lips we've been reading belong to the real GeorgeBush, or to a politician pulling off a monumental con job, it allfills me with unease.
Carl T. Rowan is a nationally syndicated columnist of theChicago Sun-Times.
Looking for the real George Bush
We've been "reading the lips" of George Bush for months, and Ifeel like an illiterate. Because I can't figure out who Bush reallyis other than a man who seems willing to say and do almost anythingto become president.
I can't escape the feeling that behind the slick packaging ofBush as wimp-turned-gunslinger, and the disgustingly dirtycampaigning, there is a real George Bush that we won't learn aboutuntil after he wins the election next Tuesday - if the pollsters areright in predicting that he will triumph.
The George Bush who sees the Oval Office within his grasp soundsfar different on taxes, crime, race and other issues than the manwhose lips a lot of us have watched move for two decades - often withsomeone else pulling the strings.
In 1980, when he tried to wrest the Republican nomination fromRonald Reagan, Bush described as "voodoo" the Reagan promise to cuttaxes drastically, spend an extra $1.5 trillion on the Pentagon andstill balance the budget. It was "voodoo." It brought on adevastating recession, and it put America $2.8 trillion in debt.
But now comes Bush calling for a reduction in the capital gainstax from 33 to 15 per cent; for the building of costly new weaponssystems; for tax breaks for oil drillers - all this with a promisethat there will be billions for education and day care, because thered ink will dry up. This country will fall into what Bush calls"deep doodoo" if he is serious about his new version of voodoo.
I know personally that Bush is no racist. Only an obsessivelust for the power of the presidency could have caused him to allowthe image-killers around him to appeal to the worst kind of fear andbigotry in order to smear Michael Dukakis, portraying theMassachusetts governor as the candidate of "rapists, murderers andchild molesters."
Many Maryland GOP leaders are in an uproar because statechairman Daniel E. Fleming put out a fund-raiser leaflet suggestingthat Dukakis' "real" running mate is a black murderer named WillieHorton, who raped a white woman after escaping from theMassachussetts prison furlough program. "Outrageous" and"un-American," Republican Rep. Constance A. Morella said of theleaflet. "I'm livid," said Joyce L. Terhes, the GOP first vicechairperson. "Totally out of bounds," said James A. Baker III, Bush'scampaign manager.
But when NBC's Tom Brokaw asked Bush about the leaflet, the vicepresident virtually dismissed it as part of "the rough-and-tumble" ofthe campaign.
We can say that Bush didn't put out or directly approve thispiece of slime, but he seems content to reap whatever votes come fromthis outrageous appeal to fear and racism. We can say that Bush didnot orchestrate the other dirty elements of his campaign. But can wesay that the people who did will not become Bush's "palace guard,"espousing the meanness that have marked their rush to power?
I never thought of "the old George Bush" as someone who wouldforce a 12-year-old girl, raped and impregnated by her father, tocarry the baby to term. But Bush's running mate, Dan Quayle, saysthat is the magnitude of the Bush-Quayle opposition to abortion.
Is candidate Bush taking the voodoo tax line just to please fatcats who pretend that prosperity trickles down? Or the inflammatoryapproach to race and crime to hang on to the "Reagan Democrats"? Orthe abortion-school prayer-Pledge of Allegiance gambit just toplacate the far-right Republicans? We won't know until after we havemade a fateful choice.
Whether the lips we've been reading belong to the real GeorgeBush, or to a politician pulling off a monumental con job, it allfills me with unease.
Carl T. Rowan is a nationally syndicated columnist of theChicago Sun-Times.
Looking for the real George Bush
We've been "reading the lips" of George Bush for months, and Ifeel like an illiterate. Because I can't figure out who Bush reallyis other than a man who seems willing to say and do almost anythingto become president.
I can't escape the feeling that behind the slick packaging ofBush as wimp-turned-gunslinger, and the disgustingly dirtycampaigning, there is a real George Bush that we won't learn aboutuntil after he wins the election next Tuesday - if the pollsters areright in predicting that he will triumph.
The George Bush who sees the Oval Office within his grasp soundsfar different on taxes, crime, race and other issues than the manwhose lips a lot of us have watched move for two decades - often withsomeone else pulling the strings.
In 1980, when he tried to wrest the Republican nomination fromRonald Reagan, Bush described as "voodoo" the Reagan promise to cuttaxes drastically, spend an extra $1.5 trillion on the Pentagon andstill balance the budget. It was "voodoo." It brought on adevastating recession, and it put America $2.8 trillion in debt.
But now comes Bush calling for a reduction in the capital gainstax from 33 to 15 per cent; for the building of costly new weaponssystems; for tax breaks for oil drillers - all this with a promisethat there will be billions for education and day care, because thered ink will dry up. This country will fall into what Bush calls"deep doodoo" if he is serious about his new version of voodoo.
I know personally that Bush is no racist. Only an obsessivelust for the power of the presidency could have caused him to allowthe image-killers around him to appeal to the worst kind of fear andbigotry in order to smear Michael Dukakis, portraying theMassachusetts governor as the candidate of "rapists, murderers andchild molesters."
Many Maryland GOP leaders are in an uproar because statechairman Daniel E. Fleming put out a fund-raiser leaflet suggestingthat Dukakis' "real" running mate is a black murderer named WillieHorton, who raped a white woman after escaping from theMassachussetts prison furlough program. "Outrageous" and"un-American," Republican Rep. Constance A. Morella said of theleaflet. "I'm livid," said Joyce L. Terhes, the GOP first vicechairperson. "Totally out of bounds," said James A. Baker III, Bush'scampaign manager.
But when NBC's Tom Brokaw asked Bush about the leaflet, the vicepresident virtually dismissed it as part of "the rough-and-tumble" ofthe campaign.
We can say that Bush didn't put out or directly approve thispiece of slime, but he seems content to reap whatever votes come fromthis outrageous appeal to fear and racism. We can say that Bush didnot orchestrate the other dirty elements of his campaign. But can wesay that the people who did will not become Bush's "palace guard,"espousing the meanness that have marked their rush to power?
I never thought of "the old George Bush" as someone who wouldforce a 12-year-old girl, raped and impregnated by her father, tocarry the baby to term. But Bush's running mate, Dan Quayle, saysthat is the magnitude of the Bush-Quayle opposition to abortion.
Is candidate Bush taking the voodoo tax line just to please fatcats who pretend that prosperity trickles down? Or the inflammatoryapproach to race and crime to hang on to the "Reagan Democrats"? Orthe abortion-school prayer-Pledge of Allegiance gambit just toplacate the far-right Republicans? We won't know until after we havemade a fateful choice.
Whether the lips we've been reading belong to the real GeorgeBush, or to a politician pulling off a monumental con job, it allfills me with unease.
Carl T. Rowan is a nationally syndicated columnist of theChicago Sun-Times.
Looking for the real George Bush
We've been "reading the lips" of George Bush for months, and Ifeel like an illiterate. Because I can't figure out who Bush reallyis other than a man who seems willing to say and do almost anythingto become president.
I can't escape the feeling that behind the slick packaging ofBush as wimp-turned-gunslinger, and the disgustingly dirtycampaigning, there is a real George Bush that we won't learn aboutuntil after he wins the election next Tuesday - if the pollsters areright in predicting that he will triumph.
The George Bush who sees the Oval Office within his grasp soundsfar different on taxes, crime, race and other issues than the manwhose lips a lot of us have watched move for two decades - often withsomeone else pulling the strings.
In 1980, when he tried to wrest the Republican nomination fromRonald Reagan, Bush described as "voodoo" the Reagan promise to cuttaxes drastically, spend an extra $1.5 trillion on the Pentagon andstill balance the budget. It was "voodoo." It brought on adevastating recession, and it put America $2.8 trillion in debt.
But now comes Bush calling for a reduction in the capital gainstax from 33 to 15 per cent; for the building of costly new weaponssystems; for tax breaks for oil drillers - all this with a promisethat there will be billions for education and day care, because thered ink will dry up. This country will fall into what Bush calls"deep doodoo" if he is serious about his new version of voodoo.
I know personally that Bush is no racist. Only an obsessivelust for the power of the presidency could have caused him to allowthe image-killers around him to appeal to the worst kind of fear andbigotry in order to smear Michael Dukakis, portraying theMassachusetts governor as the candidate of "rapists, murderers andchild molesters."
Many Maryland GOP leaders are in an uproar because statechairman Daniel E. Fleming put out a fund-raiser leaflet suggestingthat Dukakis' "real" running mate is a black murderer named WillieHorton, who raped a white woman after escaping from theMassachussetts prison furlough program. "Outrageous" and"un-American," Republican Rep. Constance A. Morella said of theleaflet. "I'm livid," said Joyce L. Terhes, the GOP first vicechairperson. "Totally out of bounds," said James A. Baker III, Bush'scampaign manager.
But when NBC's Tom Brokaw asked Bush about the leaflet, the vicepresident virtually dismissed it as part of "the rough-and-tumble" ofthe campaign.
We can say that Bush didn't put out or directly approve thispiece of slime, but he seems content to reap whatever votes come fromthis outrageous appeal to fear and racism. We can say that Bush didnot orchestrate the other dirty elements of his campaign. But can wesay that the people who did will not become Bush's "palace guard,"espousing the meanness that have marked their rush to power?
I never thought of "the old George Bush" as someone who wouldforce a 12-year-old girl, raped and impregnated by her father, tocarry the baby to term. But Bush's running mate, Dan Quayle, saysthat is the magnitude of the Bush-Quayle opposition to abortion.
Is candidate Bush taking the voodoo tax line just to please fatcats who pretend that prosperity trickles down? Or the inflammatoryapproach to race and crime to hang on to the "Reagan Democrats"? Orthe abortion-school prayer-Pledge of Allegiance gambit just toplacate the far-right Republicans? We won't know until after we havemade a fateful choice.
Whether the lips we've been reading belong to the real GeorgeBush, or to a politician pulling off a monumental con job, it allfills me with unease.
Carl T. Rowan is a nationally syndicated columnist of theChicago Sun-Times.
