ormer Vice President Al Gore had a truly brilliant moment near the end of the 2000 presidential election campaign. It began November 2, when then Governor George W. Bush said the following to a group of supporters: “[Bureaucrats] want the Federal Government controlling Social Security, like it’s some kind of federal program. We understand differently, though.” Gore responded quickly by blasting Bush for the gaffe, hammering in his belief that candidates for the Presidency should know that Social Security is a federal program.
However, Gore later correctly identified the real problem with Bush’s mistake. It was not that Bush had experienced a slip of the tongue and said something that was untrue; Bush does know that Social Security is a federal program. The real problem, Gore said, was that this comment demonstrated perfectly the views of conservatives like Bush who oppose every federal program in existence, regardless of success or popularity. A slip of the tongue can happen to anyone in the most innocent of circumstances (e.g., Gore’s claim that he invented the Internet), but it is what these gaffes show about the gaffer’s true self that is important. In short, Bush’s comment does not make him stupid; it makes him dangerous.
As usual, the media is a large part of the problem. When Bush asked, “Is our children learning?” the press roasted him for “stupidity.” But that comment hardly shows that Bush lacks intelligence; no one is suggesting that he truly does not know how to conjugate the verb “to be.” What it means is that he lacks communication skills, skills that are necessary for the presidency. Again, this focus on humor and superficial falseness detracts from the bigger issues lurking behind Bush’s jumbled words. When a candidate makes a serious verbal gaffe, the most it can cost him is popularity or votes.
However, when the President of the United States makes these mistakes, the ramifications can be far more powerful, and this makes Bush dangerous to our nation’s security. “Yes we do [have an obligation to defend Taiwan],” Bush recently told Good Morning America, “and the Chinese must understand that.”
On the surface, this seems like a fairly innocent statement. After all, our allegiance to Taiwan has been quite clear, from its emergence as the symbol of anti-Communist China in ’49 to Bush’s decision on April 24 of this year to sell Taiwan what the Boston Globe called “the most extensive weapons package in a decade.” Why then, should we not promise to defend our allies against Red China?
The problem is simple: what if Taiwan is attacked? With Bush’s declaration, the United States would be left with two very unpleasant options: reneging on their promise to Taiwan, or entering into a war with China$mdash; World War Three, if you will. According to the Boston Globe, Bush’s statements were “a sharp break from a 22-year policy of calculated ambiguity in spelling out how the United States would react to an attack on Taiwan.”
Here, it seems, Bush’s mouth has put him in a predicament that a sense of humor and a Texas accent can’t fix. As his comments hit the press (the very same press that he wisecracked his way through to the oval office), reaction was strong. Everyone from the Communist Chinese to Republicans on Capitol Hill appeared stunned by Bush’s words.
“I don’t think there was an intent to make explicit what has been implicit in US policy for 30 years,” a Republican aide in Washington told the Boston Globe. “Sometimes the subtleties [of the China policy] are lost on people.” When asked if Senate Republicans knew of a potential policy change on Taiwan in advance, the aide replied, “I don’t think his staff knew.”
On a practical level, Bush’s comments may be fairly harmless, despite claims from one Chinese analyst that they were “more serious than the [recent U.S spy plane] air collision.” There does not seem to be a logical reason for China to invade Taiwan in the near future, especially considering that they have not done so in the past half-century. What is disturbing is that Bush seems to be out of the loop, a man simply not prepared for the Presidency.
And so once again, we have Bush making a ridiculous statement, only this time a far more harmful one. And again, the implications behind the statement are as damaging as the statement itself.
Communication is the key to a successful White House. Jimmy Carter was miserable at it, and suffered the consequences. Ronald Reagan was good at it, and reaped the benefits. Thus, there is really no way Bush can win here. If one believes for a moment that the President’s comments were in fact a sign of a change in policy and not a horrible mistake, then why did his aides not know about the change? This lack of communication is far more troubling than the slip of the tongue that most people take the statements to be.
If one is to believe the Chinese, Bush is trying to antagonize the Communist State. “It seems to me that [the United States] prefers tension with China to cooperation,” Chinese Academic Yan Xuetong told the Globe. If one is to believe Washington insiders, Bush goofed. Democrats claim Bush is either trying to change, as Senator John Kerry put it,: “a policy that has been in place for 30 years…with implications I believe are serious,” or his speech troubles are becoming a liability. GOP spin-doctors claim the President never said anything of significance, as evidenced, they claim, by his later, more refined statements on the subject.
Who is right? The fact is, it does not matter. With Bush, Americans are left with two options: he is incompetent or dangerous. Unfortunately, when you are the leader of the free world, the two go hand-in-hand.
