Bush ratings high after 100 days in office

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, APRIL 28. Sooner or later that first comprehensive assessment was going to come, not just from supporters and critics but from the very person who emerged the winner in one of the closest Presidential elections in American history. Mr. George W Bush, the 43rd President of the United States who came to the White House after losing the popular vote, completes 100 days in office on Monday.

And the reactions in the political spectrum have been along expected lines. The conservatives in the Grand Old Party and outside point to the 63 approval rating for Mr. Bush - more than the 59 per cent Mr. Bill Clinton had in 1993. ``I can say with certainty to the American people: Progress is being made,'' remarked the President in one of a series of interviews he gave to the media on the occasion of his approaching the first benchmark.

Scholars and historians have made the point that one of the reasons for the high approval rating is that unlike many of his predecessors Mr. Bush has faced no real crisis. For instance, John F Kennedy had the Bay of Pigs fiasco; Mr. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon; Mr. Bill Clinton was criticised for allowing gays in the military and the senior Bush saw his nomination of John Tower for Defence Secretary shot down by the Senate. Miffed by the way Mr. Al Gore lost the Presidential election and convinced that the Republican incumbent had no legitimate mandate, Democrats had some sharp words for the President as he approached the first 100 days. ``These first 100 days gives us real concern about the next 1360,'' the Senate Minority Leader, Mr. Tom Daschle said.

Not to be outdone, the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, Mr. Richard Gephardt took apart Mr. Bush's claims of compassionate conservatism and the claim that the President was a ``uniter'' and not a divider. ``This is not compassionate conservatism. This is leaving no special interest behind and it must not stand,'' Mr. Gephardt said. The Missouri politician is seen as a candidate for the Presidential elections of 2004 and it is quite possible that Mr. Daschle too will be in the fray.

The Conservatives are sore that the Democrats have not lived up to the ``tradition'' of politics - the honeymoon period. But Democrats counter this by saying that it was Mr. Bush who broke the ``rules'' by starting to attack the Clinton administration's economic policies. And the argument is that in Mr. Bush's first 100 days, there has been neither collaboration nor negotiation. ``There have been no bipartisan conclusions. It is `my way or the highway' every day,'' quipped Mr. Gephardt.

If Democrats and critics of the President are assailing the tracking record of the first 100 days, it is for reasons that range from key domestic policies to critical decisions in the realm of foreign affairs. After talking tough about not backing down from his $1.6 trillion tax cut package, Mr. Bush recently acknowledged that he did not have the ``numbers'' to push this through the Senate and therefore would have to compromise. Democrats have given the President poor grades on most policies but this has not rattled the White House. Critics have, for instance, denounced the administration for walking away from commitments on the environment, reversing an order reducing the amount of arsenic in drinking water and ending testing for salmonella in ground beef in the national school lunch programme. Still, Mr. Bush believes that Americans will see him as having a ``common sense approach to the environment''.

On the foreign policy front, the Bush White House has been assailed for the utterances on Taiwan. The administration may be making the point that the President stayed away from ambiguity by making his views well known to both Taiwan and China. But the blunt words on what America would do in the event of a confrontation in the Straits along with the arms package to Taiwan have certainly upped the ante in the Asia-Pacific. Mr. Bush was given ``good marks'' - even by the Democrats - for his handling of the April 1 spy plane collision over the South China Seas but by and large there is apprehension about how the Republican administration will fashion its foreign policy in the Post-Cold War era.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : Shanghai Five to fight terrorism
Next     : Hague attacked by own M.P. on race issue