You Can Have Him

...The sentences become short, sharp, pointed, deadly...

...The governor does not like criticism, largely because he is unaccustomed to it, and in the course of a presidential campaign, he is likely to encounter more than his share...

...The economy has not prevailed, but endured...

...conceive of his State of the Union address...

...But let us not count on small favors, hope for the best, or imagine that legislative history repeats...

...So, out they went—Gary Hart, Albert Gore, Jesse Jackson, Richard Gephardt—one by one...

...No Democratic President since Dallas has held office without being challenged by the Kennedy clan...

...For Michael Dukakis is, if nothing else, a New England Jimmy Carter: dark where the late president is light, but tousle-haired, short, stiff and unre12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1988 sponsive, fixing his audience with Frigidaire eyes, lulling his listeners in monotonous tones, raising his voice in the middle of his sentences, emphasizing syllables for no apparent reason, chopping the air with clammy hands, forgetting where the phrases end and paragraphs begin, jumping at the jugular, reacting with venom, careful to make sure that the vanquished will hurt...

...And when the Pentagon budget is cut down to size, and Route 128 looks ragged and worn, Michael Dukakis will be several hundred miles in safety from Boston...

...nothing is uncertain because everybody says so...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1988 13 Six years later, when the Biden tape was circulated, the governor was similarly indignant and discreet...

...open up USA Today and find Archbishop Tutu on the Oval Office sofa, Ramsey Clark with the Medal of Freedom, Laurence Tribe on the High Court bench...

...Put another New England ideologue—say, George Mitchell of Maine—in the majority leader's chair, keep James Wright compliant, populate the Cabinet with mid-level refugees from the Carter Administration, and voila...

...This was not the first time Mr...

...In Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis has imposed his special brand of solvency by routinely raising taxes, or levying new tariffs where Democrats don't live...

...Sasso had done his master's bidding: When Dukakis ran to regain the State House in 1982, his minions manufactured a pornographic movie, fraudulent but effective, featuring the wife of his primary opponent, the First Lady of the Commonwealth...

...Think of that sneer when reporters get impertinent...

...works well enough in Massachusetts, but it would be interesting to see how it plays on Capitol Hill...

...Criticism is "garbage," he says, teeth clenched, eyes flashing...

...The ethical vapors smell largely the same, but the volume is greater: Congress is a giant casino, Beacon Hill a corner crap game...

...Providence, Rhode Island W e have a dilemma here in New England, and it comes down to this: Shall we elect Michael Dukakis to the White House, and rid ourselves of his scolding presence, or should we guarantee the Bay State yet another decade of the Massachusetts Miracle...

...It was Michael Dukakis and his black prince, John Sasso, who slipped the deadly videotape of a plagiarizing Biden into reportorial hands...

...But if Carter's buffoonery made him ultimately vulnerable, there is in Dukakis a colder vein of iron...

...In those rarefied circles, everything is obvious because everyone agrees...

...conjure up a picture of Dukakis on a battleship...

...But even where they break down, the comparison is unflattering...

...This is not apt to endear him to the electorate, who prefer a semblance of humor in their emperors, or at least some evidence of make-believe humility...

...His response, I should say, is invariably hostile: There is in the governor a sense of confidence that seems to outweigh judgment, and it makes greater sense to Michael Dukakis to slap down dissent with the back of his hand than acknowledge mistakes, or even seek out consensus...

...And invoked with a vengeance: For what is the substance behind those gorgeous generalities but more and better spending, Marshall Plans for the cities, for the family farms, the interstate highways, bridges, aqueducts, aquifers, community colleges, the day-care centers and welfare hotels, numerical quotas for Native Americans, the Differently Abled, Quakers, Aleuts, dykes on bikes, sociologists, writers-in-residence, veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade...

...A Democratic President cannot bring a Democratic Congress to heel—John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter proved that with aplomb—but the right combination of factors could work...

...notwithstanding, the Democrats have remembered much, but learned very little...

...It is not for nothing that those dreadful years in exile, the years when Massachusetts scrambled to its feet, were spent at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University...

...It is a formidable thing to see, and whether you are the widow of a victim of a furloughed murderer, or a mayor who has not bowed quite deeply enough, the lash of the squire can be painful indeed...

...This is, after all, a bachelor of arts of Swarthmore College, a master of ceremonies from PBS, a legislator weaned in a one-party state, a man for all seasons in our icy Boston winters...

...And here they come—Lloyd Bentsen, the gentleman from Texas who won't even get to attend foreign funerals, John Sasso, still handling the strings, Kitty, wielding veto power, and Robert Reich and Joseph Nye and Mary Frances Berry and Charles William Maynes—O Lord, havemercy upon us, miserable offenders...

...it's "this crowd in the White House" or "the clowns around Reagan...

...I t can't happen here...

...There the antics are nearly as disheartening, but not quite so juvenile, as in Boston, Massachusetts...

...This sort of thing 'Baptized Stelian, a manic-depressive...

...Not since Franklin Roosevelt has a Democratic President served two full terms in Philip Terzian is chief editorial writer o the Providence Journal...

...Miss Estrich is a battle-scarred veteran of such Democratic triumphs as Edward Kennedy's presidential quest (1980) and Geraldine Ferraro's campaign staff (1984...

...Out of the great tradition he comes, of Edward Kennedy and Edward Markey, of Gerry Studds and Barney Frank, of Joe Kennedy II and Francis X. Bellotti, of Robert Drinan, S. J. and Thomas P. O'Neill—rogues and peasant slaves, no doubt, but they're ours, not yours, and not fit for export...

...Sarcasm creeps between the lines, contempt oozes through the curled lips, the neck grows red, the mouth twists, the eyes narrow, the temperature drops...

...And even this year, when his fiscal austerity has become a badge of honor, the Commonwealth has fallen in a halfbillion-dollar hole, assisted by his loyal legislative servants, covered with a loin cloth of new and better taxes...

...On the one hand, there is something perversely appealing about Dukakis as President: like Jimmy Carter a dozen years ago, a living reproach to the judgment of the electorate...

...True to form, he suggested here and there that the hapless Richard Gephardt had sent the tape around...

...The truth of the matter is that, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr...

...He's got it all down...

...It is a difficult decision...

...So imagine, if you will, Michael Dukakis as Commander-in-Chief: greeting the Easter Seal poster child in the Rose Garden, addressing the nation with Kitty's portrait on the bookcase, flying to Brussels to set the Europeans straight, inviting Cousin Olympia to read Homer in the East Room, invoking mandatory seat belt legislation for Guam...

...And Governor Dukakis, who initially seemed no better than a dime-store Machiavelli, soon found himself lavished with generous praise: He had acquired the first woman campaignmanager in presidential history, whose name adorns the short list for Supreme Court nominations...

...Yes, it is unlikely that President Dukakis could create the sort of people's republic that has made his home state the envy of Tanzania, a 1980s replica of 1940s Britain...

...D emember Joseph Biden—the I\ Saint George of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the statesman from Delaware who slew Judge Robert Bork...

...It is New England that is on the march,not Massachusetts, and Michael Dukakis has had the hapless Edward King to thank for good luck, the Boston Globe to thank for good ink, the Republican party to thank for free rides, and Caspar Weinberger to thank for investment...

...The greatest foreign policy catastrophe of modern American history—Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam war—has tumbled down the memory hole, while the greatest domestic policy disaster—Lyndon Johnson's Great Society—is remembered with affection...

...Yet make no mistake: the Massachusetts Miracle is not strength but resilience, the capacity of the Bay State to suffer such taxation, regulation, prohibition, interdiction, prevention, proscription, impediments, obstructions, and harassment as Dukakis and his brain trust could throw in its path...

...If the Republicans were anything other than an assortment of cranks, occasional ambitious office boys, aristocrats in hiding, reserved and austere, a fisherman or two, and dozens of devotees of prayer in public schools, the circumstances would be something other than tragic...

...It has happened before—and if Michael Dukakis bears more than a resemblance to his Democratic predecessor, it ought to be remembered that the things which made us guffaw about poor Jimmy were soon shoved aside by his serious intent...

...Deceased, alas, in a mysterious motoring accident...

...Sasso was succeeded in time by Susan Estrich, a 35-year-old Harvard Law School instructor, the wife of a Disney studio executive, Martin Kaplan by name, who used to write speeches for candidate Walter Mondale...

...And Michael Dukakis has bought it all, and more: caviling at the "inordinate fear of Communism," the apologetic tone, the settling of scores, the certainty of righteousness, the dubious associates, the suspicion of the West, the sense of a nation unworthy of his leadership, the conviction that malaise is what ails us all, American belligerence, intransigence, bigotry, and violence...

...not flourished, but kept pace...

...For Jimmy Carter, at least, balanced the Georgia budget on more than one occasion...

...On the other hand, this is a question of values: Why should the country suffer for the follies of Massachusetts...

...During his lucid intervals he would walk the streets of Brookline, distributing campaign literature hostile to his brother...

...A tip of the hat is not the governor's style...

...happy succession...

...It is our conviction in New England that suffering is healthy, that self-mortification is bran flakes for the soul, that the road less traveled, the better mousetrap, early to bed and early to rise make a man President, if not wealthy and wise...

...Laugh if you may, but cry when you will...

...the witch's brew is stirring in the pot, the spirit of Salem is felt throughout the land...

...I leave it to the psychoanalysts to explain why this should be, but no one who has watched him in action for very long can fail to observe it...

...If they want him, we deserve him—and from the tip of the Berkshires to the depths of Buzzards Bay, from Mount Desert Island to the peaks of Darien, please take him with our compliments, but take him away...

...An aged mother, an iron-willed wife, a lunatic brother,' a Kirbo named Brountas—the parallels persist...

...To be a Democrat in Massachusetts is to take refuge in numbers: Join the party, curry favor, gain some leverage, hand out money, hire planners, earn a dacha, bleed the bourgeoisie...

...Dukakis kept his distance...

...It is dangerous to be amused by Democratic Presidents, for what seems funny to us is plausible to them, and what is plausible to us is hilarious in their view...

...Of course, as nearly everyone suspected, it was Sasso who had done the work, the governor knew it, and knew about it early, and pretended to temporize—and then jettisoned John Sasso...

...It premiered at the Globe...