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Subject: The American Way of Waffling;In the Flip-Flop Nation, It's Better to Switch
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 09:22:42 EST
Message-ID: <4.1992Nov8.092243@AmeriCast.com>

The American Way of Waffling;In the Flip-Flop Nation, It's Better
to Switch than Fight<By David Shenk=

"You cannot turn the White House into the Waffle House."<

- President Bush>

TOO BAD George Bush's political instincts betrayed him on the
waffle issue. At that lonely, oval moment of decision, when it
came time to take a firm stand, Bush signed on as strongly anti-
Flop.  Big Mistake - possibly the biggest of the campaign.

As he may suspect right about now, Bush picked the wrong nation
in which to wave the bloody waffle.  The old switcheroo is Ameri-
can through and through. It's as sportsmanlike as ambi-athletes
Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, as folksily authentic as acoustic-
gone-electric-then-Saved-then-UnSaved Bob Dylan, as provocative
as the freshly dashikied, newly parochial Marion Barry.

Forget Horatio Alger; forget Donald Trump; if you're earnestly
searching for a tried-and-true formula for American success, it's
as simple as this: reverse course. Go get reborn, reformed, re-
freshed. You'll feel better and, more to the point, people will
shower you with respect and admiration. Jerry Brown fails miser-
ably at big-money politics, so he dons a populist turtleneck and
a 1-800 number and earns the largest following of his career.
This is the American way: We put a premium on contradiction. Give
us your whimsical, your incongruous, your metamorphosists yearn-
ing to breathe free. They are most welcome in the land of the
makeover.

Washington, the home of the revolving door, would naturally be
the turncoat capital. Just ask then-Catholic priest/now-Mouthy
King Pundit John McLaughlin or then-Love Boat Purser/now-Iowa
Rep. Fred Grandy. From Cabinet secretary to corporate lobbyist,
from national correspondent to White House shill, it's tacitly
understood that in this town, vocation, party affiliation and is-
sue allegiance are only a television opportunity, tracking poll
or campaign contribution away from an abrupt about-face.

The only trick is to ride the roller coaster as if you designed
it yourself. At one point long before things really started going
downhill for Jimmy Carter (a born-again Christian), aides put out
the word that consumers were piling up too much credit card debt,
thereby fueling inflation. Mellow out on the MasterCard, Ameri-
cans were told. Three weeks later, though, another statement came
out of the White House: Why the slowdown in spending? Start using
those credit cards, folks, or we're going to have one whopper of
a recession.

No doubt some poor soul lost his job over that mix-up. He should
have been promoted. If Carter had encouraged rather than
squelched a titillating, edge-of-your-seat mystique in the White
House, he might have held on to it for another four years.

The man who replaced him was, of course, the master of the con-
tradiction. Reagan, a former Democrat, was the family man who
didn't get along with his kids; the government trimmer who ex-
panded the federal government; the Cold War hardliner who shipped
weapons to Iran within days of his Inauguration. Reagan ratcheted
up the nuclear hysteria with his denunciations of the "evil em-
pire" and within a few years went to Moscow purring like a
kitten.<Which brings us to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's a cyborg
assassin. No, he's a kindergarten teacher. No, he's a ruthless
cop. No, he's Danny DeVito's winsome twin. He's a staunch conser-
vative; but wait, he's sort of a Kennedy . . . .

Why is it that we're so enamored of flippers? Maybe it's because
turncoats are us. Let's go to the polling data.

At first, 62 percent of those polled a few years ago agreed that
"we should do everything in our power to achieve military su-
periority" over the Soviet Union. But later that same poll, 74
percent agreed "there is no practical way to achieve military su-
periority over the Soviet Union; we should seek a balance of
power with them."

At first, 56 percent agreed that the country should not give up
the Strategic Defense Initiative in order to negotiate deep nu-
clear arms cuts.  But later that same poll, 59 percent agreed
that the country should give up Star Wars "to work with the So-
viets to solve problems facing both countries." Clearly, if you
give Americans a little wiggle room, they're going to reposition.
In 1991, Americans overwhelmingly supported the Gulf War,
President Bush and Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas (over
Anita Hill).  Today, Americans feel strongly the other way on all
of the above.

Which, of course, raises the specter of a Bush comeback in 1996.
How to make it happen?  Next time around, instead of harping on
Clinton's contradictions, Bush should highlight some of his own.
For starters, he could remind voters of the spectacular 1980
flipflops - from Nixonian detente devotee to Weinbergerian hawk,
from pro-choice moderate to pro-life man of conscience, and from
Wall Street Republican to Vice-Voodoo Practitioner - a first-
class transmogrification, all in a moment's notice one August
evening backstage at the Detroit Convention Center.

Then, he could painstakingly detail the topsy-turviness of his 12
years in power. The Bush/Reagan years featured extensive negotia-
tions with terrorists and the occasional support for despots over
democrats.

For the Supreme Court, Bush promised "best-qualified" and
"strict" constructionists; we got Clarence Thomas and a thorough
mockery of stare decisis. He flipped on taxes, never threw real
support behind Jack Kemp's enterprise zones or any other urban
initiative, and gave a flurry of mixed signals on gay rights. He
lied outright about Iran-contra and was about as much as an en-
vironmental and education president as that one-month wonder,
William Henry Harrison.

His best bet, in other words, would be to run on his record,
secure in the knowledge that, in America, it's never too late to
change your mind.<02:06 11-08C9999-----

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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