Editorials / Bouncy-Bouncy / Foul Mouths
Jr, R. Emmett Tyrrell
EDITORIALS Bouncy-Bouncy by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. W ashington, the idyllic hick town in which I dwell, is in another of its episodic fevers about the big, lovable lug of a boy whom we call "Mr....
...As economist Alan Reynolds wrote in the Wall Street Journal the other day, Clinton's economy features "a falling labor force, falling productivity, falling savings, capital flight, soaring imports, and speculative inventory hoarding to beat inflation...
...Presently, the bouncing president rebounded above 50 percent, whereupon his ratings dropped again...
...As we go to press, he has sunk to 39 percent...
...He has presided over a foreign policy that is as abundant with contradictions as his economic policy, and even less successful...
...Large numbers of American politicians view themselves as a combination of Joan of Arc and Elvis Presley...
...And the Post summons Dr...
...The story went on to wonder over how the president's job approval rating could have again plummeted...
...Again, all Washington was in a fever...
...Recent polls of the electorate, however, suggest that those dissatisfied with the Clintons are neither haters nor particularly right-wing...
...Actually, Clinton's ratings have bounced around the lower levels of approbation since he tripped past his first hundred days...
...Actually, this whole presidency has been delusional...
...Secondly, this president has never been particularly popular with the electorate...
...Then his approval rating was at 55 percent, the lowest of any president at that juncture since such polling began...
...His ratings bounced up a bit over the next few weeks and then dropped to a record low of 36 percent...
...It is unusual, however, when the tough-minded skeptics in the press fall for this delusion...
...Clinton has done little for the economy...
...Clinton was promising deficit reduction and more spending, a tax increase and growth...
...By mid-summer he thudded to 47 percent, despite a "booming" economy...
...It had the budget cuts of an Eisenhower, the spending and taxing initiatives of a McGovern, and the economic coherence of a drunken playboy...
...Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Clintons really believed that the Reagan years were a disaster for the Republic...
...Yet few pundits seemed to care...
...Clinton believes he is the victim ofthe "Christian right...
...They believed that President Bush's low-growth economy was a catastrophe to be rectified by higher 14 The American Spectator October 1994 taxes and more spending...
...0 16 The American Spectator October 1994...
...President...
...He won the presidency with a mere 43 percent—three percentage points less than his predecessor as Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, corralled on losing to George Bush...
...Thomas E. Mann from the Brookings Institution to inform us that in such times of "boom" a Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Times column syndicated by Creators Syndicate...
...As the incomparable Washington Post put it, "A booming economy has proven to be a political bust for President Clinton...
...But it was a platypus...
...We are in a low-growth recovery and headed for stagflation, a la the Carter administration of the late 1970s...
...They presented to Congress what the Clintons were pleased to call "the President's Plan...
...Finally, he has repeatedly, blatantly, and recklessly lied to the electorate...
...Moreover, contrary to the central goal of Clinton's economic package last sum-mer, long-term interest rates have risen from 5.35 percent last September to 7.28 percent today...
...In fact, those who have consistently been critical of this buffoonish presidency have been made out to be oddities...
...The "plan" was buttressed by no single economic theory known to man...
...What is surprising is that the press and Washington's political cognoscenti are surprised...
...Their megalomania is not unusual...
...Well, to begin with, the economy is not "booming," and I would think some editor in preparing the Post's story might have pointed that out...
...They are merely Americans who feel that a president should be held accountable for his actions...
...The Clintons came to Washington believing themselves to be God-like creatures summoned by a grateful people to liberate the Republic from years of poverty and sordidness...
...Now, perhaps for stage effect, the press reports that early this year Clinton had leapt to a whopping 57 percent in the polls...
...president's approval rating should be 60 percent...
...One unspoken cause for President Clinton's perpetually low approval ratings is that the American people do not like to be lied to...
...That this president has a low approval rating—in an economy not much more robust than the one he harangued in 1992—is not all that surprising...
...Why the press gets so excited over a failed president's low ratings will mystify normal minds...
...I have in mind such no-nonsense types as Michael Kinsley, Sidney Blumenthal, and the estimable Eleanor Clift...
...Time magazine's cover roared about "The Incredible Shrinking President...
...Clinton says they hate her...
Vol. 27 • October 1994 • No. 10
