doing so, [he] would largely be identifying [his] party's own failings." "The Republicans
at least know they have a problem on the 'vision thing,'" Phillips noted, while the
Democratic opposition "can't even spell the word." All of this added up to the "cerebral
atrophy of government." Phillips catalogued the absurd complacency of the Bushmen,
with Brady saying of the US economy that "it couldn't get much better than it is" and
Baker responding to Democratic criticisms of Bush foreign policy with the retort: "When
the President is rocking along with a 70 per cent approval rating on his handling of
foreign policy, if I were the leader of the opposition, I might have something similar to
say." Phillips's basic thesis was that Bush and his ostensible opposition had joined hands
simply to ignore the existence of the leading problems threatening US national life, while
hiding behind an "irrelevant consensus" forged ten to twenty years in the past, and
reminiscent overall of the pre-1860 tacit understanding of Democrats and Whigs to sweep
sectionalism and slavery under the rug. One result of this conspiracy of the incumbents to
ignore the real world was the "unhappy duality that the United States and Russia are both
weakening empires in haphazard retreat from their post-1945 bipolar dominance."
Phillips's conclusion was that while reality might begin to force a change in the "political
agenda" by 1990, it was more likely that a shift would occur in 1992 when an aroused
electorate, smarting from decades of decline in standards of living and economic
aspirations, might "hand out surprising political rewards." "Honesty's day is coming,"
summed up Phillips, with the clear implication that George Bush would not be a
beneficiary of the new day.
Similar themes were developed in the Bonesmen's own Time Magazine towards the end
of the month in coverage entitled "Is Government Dead?," which featured a cover picture
of George Washington shedding a big tear and a blurb warning that "Unwilling to lead,
politicians are letting America slip into paralysis." [fn 21] Inside, the Washington regime
was stigmatized as "the can't do government," with an analysis concluding that "abroad
and at home, more and more problems and opportunities are going unmet. Under the
shadow of a massive federal defecit that neither political party is willing to confront, a
kind of neurosis of accepted limits has taken hold from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue
to the other." Time discovered that Bush and the Congress were "conspiring to hide" $96
billion of a $206 billion defecit through various strategems, while the bill for the S&L
bailout had levitated upwards to $300 billion. Time held up to ridicule the "paltry $115
million" Bush had offered as economic aide to Poland during his visit there during the
summer. Grave responsibility for the growing malaise was assigned by Time to Bush:
"Leadership is generally left to the President. Yet George Bush seems to have as much
trouble as ever with the 'vision thing.' Handcuffed by his simplistic 'read my lips'
campaign rhetoric against a tax increase as well as by his cautious personality, Bush too
often appears self-satisfied and reactive." Time went on to indict Bush for malfeasance or
nonfeasance in several areas: "His long-term goals, beyond hoping for a 'kinder, gentler'
nation, have been lost in a miasma of public relations stunts. The President's recent
'education summit' with the nation's Governors produced some interesting ideas about
national standards but little about how to pay the costs of helping public schools meet
them. His much trumpeted war on drugs was more an underfinanced skirmish. Bush told
voters last year that he is an environmentalist, but the most significant clean-air proposals