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Bush's (the best friend Israel ever had) run looks harder after Iowa

Thread ID: 12003 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2004-01-23

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Okiereddust [OP]

2004-01-23 04:43 | User Profile

[url=http://www.nydailynews.com/10-14-2003/news/col/schwartz/story/157053p-137938c.html]New York Daily News[/url]

[Sidney Zion celebrated his 40th year as a newspaperman with his return to the op-ed page of the Daily News in March 2003.

During his career, he has covered law and politics for The New York Times, was a reporter and columnist for the New York Post and a columnist for New York Magazine and the Daily News. Zion has published five books, including two compilations of his columns and the novel "Markers," soon to be a TV series. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Overseas Press Club of America Award, the New York State Bar Association Award and the Ben Hecht Journalism Award. He is a member of the New York and New Jersey bars and was a federal prosecutor during the Kennedy administration.]

It's not the State of the Union that grabs us, it's the state of the President - and, of course, his wanna-bes.

That's why we pay much more attention to that speech in reelection years than ordinarily. How's he look? How are his eyes? Are they worried or confident or maybe arrogant?

George W. Bush has never looked worried. In fact, the knock on him is that smile that spells for his enemies Ivy League-cum-Texas arrogance.

It wasn't there on Tuesday night. The general impression was gravitas, a word seldom connected to this son of privilege who won the White House by judicial dictat against the popular vote.

He scheduled the State of the Union - the only speech a President is required by the Constitution to deliver to the Congress - the day after the Iowa primary. He had to figure that his obvious opponent would be Howard Dean, which made his run look like Nixon vs. McGovern and Reagan vs. Mondale - a cakewalk. It would be Bush I vs. Dukakis redux.

Suddenly, Dean goes down, and here's John Kerry. And out of nowhere, John Edwards. And lurking up there in New Hampshire, Gen. Wesley Clark, the hit man for the hated Clintons.

All this while on the eve of the Iowa primary, a Gallup poll shows President Bush losing to any unnamed Democrat.

This confluence of events would make Groucho Marx strive for gravitas. And make Harpo talk.

But not even Dick Cheney could have figured that Howard Dean would go meshugana. It's important to recall that the good doctor lost miserably in Iowa before he lost it on TV, with that astounding exhibition that made us all wonder why his wife wasn't there with a needle.

If that doesn't do it to him in New Hampshire, the Granite State instantly becomes the capital of World Wrestling Entertainment.

So for Bush, it comes down to Kerry, Clark or Edwards, not necessarily in that order.

John Kerry made the most amazing comeback in Iowa; he opened at 11% and ended up with a win at 38%. I asked the pollster John Zogby to explain. He said: "Kerry found his bumper-sticker slogans - I'm a war hero, I know foreign policy, I can win."

This sounds very much like Wes Clark's campaign. There are differences, to be sure. Clark is far more the hawk than Kerry. Can anybody imagine Clark getting endorsed by Ted Kennedy? Or Clark's saying, as Kerry did last month, that he would send Jimmy Carter or James Baker to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Both those guys are committed anti-Israelis and pro-Palestinians.

Bush has been the best friend Israel ever had in the White House. He will never get a majority of the Jewish vote, which is historically liberal on social issues. But he might get close to the 46% vote from Jews that Ronald Reagan received in 1980.

So what was Kerry thinking when he made that proposal? Was he looking to get the Arab-American vote in the primaries? If so, he may be as meshugana as Dean, who announced that America ought to treat the Palestinians even up with Israel.

Bush's strong pro-Israel policy is clearly part and parcel of his fight against terrorism. It's his best card, even if he hasn't found Osama Bin Laden. The Democrats ought to be attacking him for allowing 9/11 to happen and for failing to fire the whole CIA. It's not only Dean who needs a saliva test. Try George Tenet and the rest of the intelligence "heroes" of 9/11.

In any event, an election that just a few days ago looked settled now is up for grabs.

Originally published on January 22, 2004