10/04/00 12:10 p.m.
The Prince of Sighs
You don't want that guy as president.

By Jonah Goldberg, NRO Editor-----------------------JonahEMail@aol.com

mmediately after the debate, I jumped online. The first e-mail I opened was from my friend Nick. It read: "In the 12th stage of Hell, Al Gore will be forced to listen to his own audible sighs for eternity."

This morning Katie Couric asked Gore about the fact that he sighed constantly last night, each time Gov. Bush opened his mouth. Gore seemed shocked that it was an issue at all and said, "I guess the mike picked up my reactions." He promised to work harder on it next time.

That's kind of funny, as this was a much-talked about tactic of the vice president's during the Democratic primary debates with former Sen. Bill Bradley. Literally dozens of newspapers reported about Gore's exasperated sighs during the Gore-Bradley Meet the Press debate: "Gore punctuated much of that program with grimaces and sighs when Bradley talked," reported the San Diego Tribune. USA Today said, "Gore emitted exasperated sighs and groans whenever Bradley spoke." The Washington Post reported that the Bradley campaign issued an "official deep-sigh count" of seven. During another debate Gore sighed 18 times.

I bring this up because sighing is not something men do a lot. Sure, when your kid comes home with a bad report card you might offer up a groan. But Al Gore grunted, gasped, groaned, moaned, and sighed like a man who accidentally swallowed the Hope diamond and is having a terrible time retrieving it through natural processes.

Different Kinds of Guys
When George Bush was in high school, he started a stickball league. He appointed himself the "commissioner" and wore a Blues Brothers-style dark suit to all "league" meetings. Everyone wanted to join because Bush was a fun guy.

When Al Gore was in high school, Al Gore played football. He ratted out his teammates for breaking training.

That was the choice presented last night. One candidate is the kind of guy who tells the coach he's disappointed that a few bad apples have to ruin it for the rest of us — while simultaneously being the one who told the coach about their bad-appleness in the first place. You can almost see his teammates explaining themselves — "but coach . . ." — while young Al stands by tsk-tsking his disappointment.

The other guy may be a little light in his studies (though people with brains know studying and brains are not synonymous), but he's the sort of guy people want to do their best around. He feels uncomfortable sounding better than other people, which can be a liability because in a way that's part of being "presidential."

The “Issues”
Unfortunately, this important distinction was blurred by a fog of what the pointy heads call "substance." The presidency of the United States is being decided upon the criteria of who is the best actuary. The president of the United States does not need to be a master of prescription-drug arcana. George W. Bush should put this issue behind him by saying he will appoint Al Gore Secretary of Health and Human Services in his administration. There's nothing wrong with taking care of old people, and we all know they vote (especially in important swing states). But why exactly should a third of the presidential debates be devoted to a topic few can understand and is not presidential? Even Jim Lehrer, the moderator, grew exasperated over this: "Let me ask you both this, and we'll move on, on this subject. As a practical matter, both of you want to bring prescription drugs to seniors. Correct?"

Alas, they couldn't move on.

Occasionally, they did stray into other areas.

More often than the Rainman said "gotta watch Wapner," Gore repeated that the Bush tax plan would give the top 1% of Americans more than Bush would spend on education, Social Security, defense, etc., combined. What Gore did not mention is that he's referring to Bush's increases over current federal spending, above inflation. He also doesn't mention that the top 1% pay 40% of all income taxes. But, hey, why talk about the wealthy's contributions while demonizing them?

One of the most frustrating topics was the Supreme Court, partly because George W. wasn't up to the task of slapping Al Gore with a philosophical wet fish. Gore reiterated his pernicious and ridiculous notion that every generation breaths new meaning into the Constitution. "In my view," Gore said last night, "the Constitution ought to be interpreted as a document that grows with our country and our history." In other words, if a majority of Americans are Nazis, then the Constitution is a fascist document rather than a defense against Fascism.

Gore denounced W.'s suggestion that he would appoint justices like Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Those names, Gore said, "are code words, and nobody should mistake this, for saying that the governor would appoint people who would overturn Roe v. Wade."

No, Bush should have said, they are code words for justices who don't think the Constitution should have "new meaning" read into it every generation by a bunch of unaccountable secular high-priests. Sure, Scalia and Thomas think Roe v. Wade is bad law (as do most pro-choicers who take an honest look at the case), but that's because it stems from this "the Constitution says whatever we want it to say" school. According to the abortion-obsessed Democratic party, the Supreme Court is supposed to be the Federal Abortion Regulatory Agency.

The Democratic party has become the undemocratic party. Not only does it see no limits on what the Supreme Court can do, it sees no issue that the federal government isn't compelled to solve. Last night Gore droned on at length about how the federal government must ensure that 15-year-old Kailey Ellis of Sarasota, Florida, gets a chair of her own for her science class (this actually turned out to be a lie, she didn't have a chair for one day according to her principal). At least when Jimmy Carter got bogged down with White House tennis-court schedules, it was in his own back yard. Al Gore sees no detail in this continental nation of 270 million that doesn't warrant his, and the federal government's, attention. The party has gone from Cross of Gold to Cross of Nickel and Dimes in one century.

Issues vs. Ideas
We hear constantly how the "issues" are on the side of the Democrats. The Democratic Scrotal Torque Brigade constantly says that "if the American people can hear where the candidates are on the issues, Gore wins." Maybe so. But that is because if the American people hear where he is on the ideas, he loses. Ever notice how the Democratic party never frames things in terms of ideas?

The central idea that Bush tried to communicate last night is that he trusts Americans. That's his idea. He trusts them to spend their own money. He trusts them to save their own money. He trusts them to make their own choices on schools and food and drugs and doctors.

Al Gore tries to hide the notion that his central idea is to empower government to make choices for people. He does this by using language that has no business being near his ideas.

Last night, MSNBC cut to a focus group which rated the debates in real time as the candidates spoke. While I generally detest such things, it was interesting to see that Al Gore's highest marks came when he talked about giving working families "choices": choice of doctor, choice of school, choice of pharmacist, etc. That's great, but the reality is that Gore wants the government to choose which choices citizens can make. His budget says Americans can choose between A and B, but C through Z are off limits, because that doesn't fit Al Gore's plan. It's like the old Yakov Smirnov joke about television in the Soviet Union. "We have two channels in the Soviet Union: channel 1, which is the propaganda channel, and channel 2, which has a KGB agent who says 'turn back to channel 1.' "

And the Winner Is …
Technically Gore won, and it is no surprise that the overnight polls say so. But strategically Bush won, albeit slightly. Bush never wanted this format at all, because he does poorly at podiums. Having gotten this debate out of the way without a major gaffe is a victory. Everyone knew Gore is a better study, so nobody was surprised when he remembered more details. But a lot of people forgot that Al Gore is arrogant and condescending and thinks the federal government should reflect his view that some people are more deserving than others. Toward the end of the evening, George Bush mentioned that Al Gore and his administration conducted themselves poorly in areas of campaign finance and the rest. Gore responded as if this were out of bounds and unfair, like the sort of study geek who almost cries because a quiz isn't on something in the assigned reading. Hopefully, the American people don't want that guy as president.