For months the White House has signaled that President Clinton will make a decision this summer about whether to deploy a national missile-defense
system by 2005. Now the
New York Times reports that Clinton won't speak on the matter until October. The upshot: Democrats have an opportunity to keep missile defense out of the presidential race.
At the very least, George W. Bush will be wise to wait until June 26 to make a major push for missile defense. That's the date of the next important test (which was originally scheduled for late April or early May). A failure to intercept, like what happened in a January test, might prove embarrassing to Bush if he appears too enthusiastic about the technology; Al Gore would call it another example of Bush lacking the experience to be president.
But a hit won't make Bush's position any easier. That's because the Clinton administration will have the last word. Bush won't know until the final days of the campaign whether the White House will undercut him with a last-minute decision to deploy. Prior to that, Gore will be able to say, correctly, that missile-defense deployment is still under review and that
there are legitimate concerns about whether the available technology will permit a system by 2005. Bush can always claim the Clinton-Gore plan
doesn't go far enough, whether or not it's adopted. That argument may be true, but it also blurs the sharp contrast between one candidate who supports missile defense and another who opposes it.
None of this is to suggest Bush shouldn't make himself the candidate of missile defense — as, to some extent, he already has. It just means that Gore will have many opportunities to make himself the other candidate of missile defense, if the politics of the campaign call for it.
Congressman Patrick Kennedy on his family name, in
USA Today: "I'm, like, in awe of the fact that I get to carry on this legacy."
The Senate voted unanimously today, as in 100-zip, to repeal the Social Security earnings limit. Opposing the limit has been part of the Republican platform since 1964. Now Democrats are falling all over themselves to explain how much they too favor repeal.
The front page of the March 2 New York Times offered some accurate historical perspective: "Republicans have long sought repeal of the
earnings limit, saying it amounts to a tax. They were blocked for decades by Democrats. . ."
