Keith Burgess-Jackson

5-3-87 . . . The 1988 presidential race is already heating up. At least two highly regarded Democrats, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy and New York Governor Mario Cuomo, have announced that they will not run for president. Democrats who have announced include Illinois Senator Paul Simon (my early choice), Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, former Colorado Senator Gary Hart (the acknowledged frontrunner), former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt, and Missouri Representative Richard Gephardt. Republicans who have announced include former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, television evangelist Pat Robertson, Delaware Governor Pete DuPont, and former Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt. As you can see, it’s a crowded field. Yet to announce are Vice President George Bush, Kansas Senator Robert Dole, and civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson, but everyone expects them to run. After the 1984 election, I predicted that we would see the following tickets: Kennedy-Cuomo for the Democrats and Bush-[Jeane] Kirkpatrick for the Republicans. Unless Kennedy and Cuomo change their minds about running, the Democrats will have to select someone else. But my Republican picks look good.

Terry Mallory called this evening as I was reading. Among other things, we discussed the presidential race, especially the recent claim that Gary Hart is a “womanizer,” and I told Terry a joke that I had read in the newspaper. “Question: Why won’t George Bush choose a woman as his running mate in 1988? Answer: Because the American people will insist on at least one man on the ticket.” You see, Bush has a reputation in some quarters as a wimp, someone who says and does what his president wants him to say and do. He’s also viewed as a yuppie [young urban professional] by some, since he went to Yale [University] and lives in Kennebunkport, Maine. There’s nothing like good presidential humor. I still laugh whenever I think about this joke.

Abortion will end. Here is how it will happen. Women will begin to abort (1) females and (2) fetuses with homosexual markers. The “fundamental right” to abort will run up against the imperative not to discriminate on the basis of sex or sexuality. Of course, the right to abort may come to be interpreted as the right to abort heterosexual males. Don’t underestimate the ingenuity of progressives.

Here is Daniel Henninger’s column about political correctness (PC). While I’m at it, here is John Fund’s latest column. How many of you are influenced by PC? If so, in what ways? Do you stifle yourself to avoid giving offense? Do you forbear to tell certain jokes for fear of getting into trouble with the PC police? Has PC been good or bad, all things considered? If you believe it’s been bad, do you acknowledge that it has done any good? If so, what? Make some predictions. What will happen to PC? Is it a fad? Will it intensify? Is there any danger that it will lead to totalitarianism?

Here.

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To the Editor:

So the president signs his order using a pen given to him by the father of a fallen marine. How facile this vainglorious White House is, putting evocative symbols before the public, trading on Americans’ politeness and compassion—and how utterly shameless and hypocritical.

Whether it’s posing next to a disabled veteran, a widowed spouse, a disaster victim, a ghetto child, a senior or the bereft parents of a soldier killed in his still-inexplicable failing vanity war in Iraq, President Bush puts form over substance every time. He has served none of the victims with whom he purports to grieve and pray. His obliviousness is the stuff of deposed kings.

Mark Miller
Los Angeles, May 2, 2007

Note from KBJ: Suppose President Bush didn’t visit (and, in the process, pose next to) disabled veterans, widowed spouses, disaster victims, ghetto children, seniors, or bereft parents. Then he would be accused of coldness, aloofness, detachment, inhumaneness, and indecency. President Bush can’t win. No matter what he does, or doesn’t do, he’s vilified for it. By the way, I seem to remember Bill Clinton doing a lot of these things. I don’t remember him being criticized by the likes of Mark Miller. Why is that? Oh, wait; I know: BDS.

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