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Subject: Bush Finds Transition An 'Ungenerous' Time;Clinton to Call at White House
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 04:53:56 EST
Message-ID: <55.1992Nov18.045356@AmeriCast.com>

Bush Finds Transition An 'Ungenerous' Time;Clinton to Call at
White House Today<By Ann Devroy=Washington Post Staff Writer=

If the Constitution allowed abdication, President Bush would
probably hand over the Oval Office to Bill Clinton today and be
done with it, so sour is he already on the lifestyle of a figure-
head president.

"I've concluded that the interregnum is too long, too ungenerous
and too long," Bush said Monday night of the transition he has
endured for only two of its scheduled 10 weeks, "but we are
determined to finish this."

The problem is, there is not much to finish.

Having endured the vice presidency for eight years, Bush has had
experience in having no real job. According to White House aides,
he accepts it. He just does not much like what one aide called
"the endless endings with no startings."

White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater said yesterday much
of what makes up "the normal life of the presidency" is already
gone, leaving Bush with "desk work.  It's not the most exciting
duty on earth."

Much of what the public sees of the presidency - pictures of
meetings with foreign leaders; the opening of Cabinet meetings;
meeting with business, social or religious leaders - is not oc-
curring. "You really drop all the ceremonial things," Fitzwater
said, because most of the groups, organizations and leaders want
to meet with the incoming, not the outgoing, president.

Another big chunk of the presidency is policy debates, and with
little policy to be made, there are few debates.  "We all kind of
wish the transition lasted two days rather than two months,"
Fitzwater said. "But we all recognize that he (Clinton) needs
this time to assemble his team and prepare" and that federal
government business, from regulatory actions to date-sensitive
actions required by law or custom must go on.

The Office of Management and Budget is preparing a 100-page budg-
et summary, rather than the full fiscal budget normally required,
whose main utility will be to give the Democrats baseline numbers
from which to launch their economic and fiscal programs. The
Council of Economic Advisers is preparing its required report on
the economy; the Council on Environmental Quality is preparing
its report.

Bush is considering some sort of public summing up but has not
decided what it should be. Presidents have used their final say
for memorable speeches (Eisenhower's address on the military-
industrial complex) or written reports on their presidencies
(Jimmy Carter). Bush has not made up his mind what to do or how,
but it most likely would center on the Cold War's end and the
safer world his grandchildren have inherited.

Bush touched on that Monday night, when he crossed the street to
the Blair House to receive a diplomatic award. The White House
announced the event was closed to the press, but a United Press
International reporter got permission from the sponsors to attend
and recorded the president in a moment of salute to how govern-
mental power is transferred.

"I think that when the history books are written, it will be seen
that we made dramatic strides toward world peace and toward im-
proving relations in so many parts of the world," Bush said. "And
that is the great satisfaction that I have as I draw to a close,
with two months left that are laborious."

The campaign, Bush said, is over, and he contended it was no
rougher than campaigns in this century have been. "The gloves
came off and we went at it hard and that's the way I like it, the
way it ought to be, and if The Washington Post doesn't like it,
too damn bad," he said.

The gears of government "are beginning to shift" to Clinton, he
said, "as they should." This smooth transition is something Amer-
icans take for granted, he said, but they should recognize as
"special . .  the other."

The next ceremonial step of that handoff will occur today in what
is still Bush's White House. The president, with hundreds of re-
porters and photographers gathered in the Rose Garden to record
the event, will emerge from the Oval Office to walk down to the
driveway to greet President-elect Clinton and take him to the
gleaming white colonnade alongside the Oval Office.

The white-columned setting that faces the Rose Garden has been
the scene of much Bush history, meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev
and Boris Yeltsin, handshakes with Mother Teresa and rock stars,
greetings of leaders from small nations and from winning sports
teams. They all have posed with Bush on the colonnade and so too
will Clinton today. And then the two will go alone, without
aides, into the Oval Office.<02:41 11-18C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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