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Jewish World Review Feb. 16, 2001 / 23 Shevat, 5761

Dale McFeatters

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Just what the spin-doctor ordered? Bush can't even get ridiculed on TV

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- ANYBODY remember George W. Bush, our new president? Good, because he's had a hard time getting any attention. He keeps getting elbowed off the front page and TV news by the old president, Bill Clinton.

Bush made a major speech on NATO and the defense of Europe. Did it get any attention? No, because it was drowned out when a giant securities firm, USB Warburg, fearing bad publicity, canceled a planned Clinton speech. Clinton got more attention for a speech he didn't make than President Bush did for one he made.

On Monday, Bush gave another defense speech in Fort Stewart, Ga., but that was drowned out by the CEO of Morgan Stanley apologizing to the firm's clients for having Clinton address a bond conference last week in Boca Raton, Fla. So Bush is eclipsed by a Clinton speech that no one paid any attention to when it was delivered.

On Tuesday, Bush flew for the first time aboard Air Force One to meet with top military brass and attend high-tech war games. The story of the day was that former President Clinton, rebuffed in his attempt to move into a luxury mid-Manhattan office tower - another story that overran Bush's message - was going to rent offices in Harlem.

More widely played than anything Bush did that day were Clinton's bogus musings about his long love affair with Harlem, how Harlem had always had a special place in his heart, how as a student in England he took budget flights home so he could walk the Harlem streets. The kid from rural Arkansas said the crowded, gritty, big-city neighborhood "just felt like home." Until now, this salient fact had eluded Clinton's numerous biographers.

Clinton at least is an equal-opportunity drowner; he also drowned out Hillary Rodham Clinton's maiden Senate speech.

On the day Bush flew to West Virginia to give a speech on advanced weaponry before a National Guard audience, the story was: Clinton's new office space, day two. It seems the city of New York holds the lease on the space, and the mayor is a Republican and one-time rival of Hillary Clinton for a U.S. Senate seat. Billion-dollar weapons systems pale beside a good, juicy real estate battle.

With some fanfare, Bush sent his long-promised $1.6 trillion tax cut to Congress. Was Congress interested? What Congress was interested in was holding hearings into Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. With Bush trying to prepare Congress for his budget later this month, a key senator was seriously talking about dragging Clinton back to Washington so Congress could impeach him all over again.

The week that Bush devoted to publicizing his education reforms was itself devoted to revelations that the Clintons had left with $198,000 in gifts, some of them the property of the White House.

Bush can't even get ridiculed on TV because of Clinton's constant presence. According to a media think tank, Clinton swamps Bush as the subject of late-night talk-show jokes - better than 3 to 1 some weeks.

With Clinton bounding around the landscape, the threat to Bush when he makes his trip to Mexico is that no one will notice he's gone.

Bush can't even get noticed doing Clinton a favor. The White House said, contrary to rumors, that Clinton's aides did not vandalize the White House and Bush himself said that reports the Clintons' supporters stripped Air Force One bare were untrue. But Clinton drowned them out.

Comment on Dale McFeatters' column by clicking here.

Up

02/09/01: A heartbeat from presidency, and both feet in obscurity
02/02/01: AlGore is continuing his fall from grace
01/26/01: "Fifteen Minutes in December"

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