Presidential Contenders.

• Author: Lynch, Michael W.

In which our man in Washington hears Earthtone Al and Dubya Bush lower their voices reverently and D.C.'s mayor support vouchers

Subj: China Good, Cuba Bad

Date: 5/30/2000 6:55:49 PM

From: mwLunch@reason.com

I headed over to the National Press Club last week, along with 300 to 400 of my closest colleagues in the Washington press corps, to catch George W. Bush. I was eager to witness Dubya answering unscripted questions. My hunch was that Bush gets a bad rap--"the English Patient" is his handle among some who travel with him--and that he couldn't be as bad as his Yale grades. He wasn't.

"I guess he's not talking about education," said a woman behind me, as Henry Kissinger. George Shultz, Colin Powell, and other GOP foreign policy luminaries took their places between the podium and 12 American flags. Once the elders were settled, Bush commenced.

He got off to an awkward start, reading the prepared text of his big foreign policy announcement. Surrounded by Cold Warriors, he accused the Clinton administration of being "locked in a Cold War mentality," declared his intention to build a missile defense system to protect all 50 states and select allies, and promised to unilaterally reduce America's weapon stockpiles to the lowest level consistent with our national security.

He was trying a tad too hard. Like a first grader learning to read in front of class, Bush put all his energy into pronouncing each word correctly, at the cost of sentence and paragraph flow. If I wasn't reading the prepared text, I'm not sure I could have absorbed his speech.

He had no such problems in Q&A, when he answered questions directly and cut up the room with humor.

What's the difference, asked one reporter, between China's communist government and Cuba when you consider things like freedom of the press, fair elections, oppression of minorities, and attacks on religious movements with no political intentions? Bush didn't duck the question, but he lapsed back into the very Cold War mindset he'd been decrying.

"The difference is, uh, as far as I'm concerned, that we are trading with an entrepreneurial class in China. That by trading with China we are encouraging a group of entrepreneurs, small business owners to get a taste of freedom," said Dubya, lowering his voice reverently when uttering "taste of freedom." "That's not the case in Cuba. In Cuba we are trading with government-controlled entities."

So I guess a President G.W. would have no objections to day trips to...