Bush Wins Doublespeak Award From Teachers

President Bush’s waffling on taxes and refusal to use the word invasion in describing events in Panama won him the 1990 Doublespeak Award on Friday from the National Council of Teachers of English.

The group cited the President’s pledge of “no new taxes” and his later call for “tax revenue increases,” as well as his statements on maternity leave and foreign policy, in naming him the recipient.

The citation calls attention to statements by officials that are “grossly deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing or self-contradictory,” said William Lutz, chairman of the organization’s Committee on Public Doublespeak.

Second place went to Mobil Corp. for calling one of its trash bags “photodegradable” even while they are buried in landfills. Third place went to Rep. Newt Gingrich, the House minority whip, for supporting and then opposing tax increases.

Bush’s doublespeak included statements about maternity leave, the teachers group said.

During his campaign, he said, “We . . . need to assure that women do not have to worry about getting their jobs back after having a child or caring for a child during a serious illness.”

But after his election, Bush vetoed the bill for parental and medical leave. A White House statement said the President “has always been opposed to the federal government mandating what every business in this country should do.”

Lutz, of Rutgers University, also cited two examples in foreign policy: the U.S. response to the June, 1989, massacre in Beijing and the December invasion of Panama.

After the Tian An Men Square killings, Bush announced suspension of U.S. “participation in all high-level exchanges of government officials” with China. Two weeks later, Bush secretly sent National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger to China, Lutz said.