Bush Assails U.S. Pessimists in SMU Speech

Displaying unbridled optimism, President Bush warned a university graduating class here Saturday against preoccupation with the nation’s troubles and scorned those who warn that America is in decline.

In the first of three major addresses intended to outline his vision of the future, Bush said he remains confident that a second “American Century” lies ahead and that young people can still look forward to a world of “limitless opportunity.”

The address on the Southern Methodist University campus sounded a countervailing theme to the cynicism and unease many Americans have expressed about their political choices and the course of the nation.

“For each of you, America is the place where ambition, energy, enthusiasm and hard work are still rewarded, where young people can still feel confidence in their dreams,” Bush told the graduates. In an angry tone, he added: “I’m a little tired of the pessimism in this country.”

In his optimism, Bush returned to a pattern he followed in 1988, when the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” became an unofficial campaign theme. On a day when many of the nation’s mayors were marching in Washington to call attention to America’s urban plight, Bush acknowledged that the Los Angeles riots meant that citizens “must resolve that no one is left behind.”

But such was the President’s determination to accentuate the positive that he made only passing reference to the violence and the soul-searching it has inspired. He said he had come away from a two-day visit to the riot-scarred city earlier this month “with a deepened sense of hope for America and her people.”

Coining a new word for those who question the nation’s course, Bush said such “declinists” merely echo misguided warnings of the past. “The pessimists were wrong,” he said, citing the nation’s self-doubt in the 1930s, the ‘50s and the ‘70s. “The pessimists always are when they talk about America.”

Bush did not mention his political opponents by name. But his optimism stood in marked contrast to the views of undeclared challenger Ross Perot, who has demanded that the nation face up to its debt and other long-term problems.

Texas billionaire Perot has plotted his independent candidacy from an office a few miles from the SMU arena where Bush delivered his commencement speech. A Time-CNN poll released Saturday now shows Perot running ahead of both Bush and Democratic Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas nationwide, and that prospective challenge has become an increasing preoccupation for the White House.

The national poll showed Perot favored by 33% of likely voters, with Bush at 28% and Clinton at 24%.

Earlier in the trip, Bush campaign press secretary Victoria Clarke denigrated the Perot challenge, particularly in the home state the candidates share. “The single most popular man in Texas is, has been and will remain George Bush,” she said.

Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has also sought to strike uplifting themes. But he too has charged that Republican rule has left the nation wounded, and he has criticized Bush for failing to articulate a vision of the nation’s future.

In launching what he said would be a series of speeches identifying American legacies that must be preserved, Bush appeared at least to be taking the first tentative steps toward defining that vision as he looks forward to the general election.

Dressed in academic robes, Bush told about 2,400 graduates here that he intended to use addresses at Notre Dame today and at the U.S. Naval Academy later this month to speak about family values and issues of war and peace.

But for his opening speech, he avowed faith in the nation’s economic future, questioned what he called “the fashionable view” and insisted “that America’s best days lie before us.”

Bush’s remarks were greeted enthusiastically by the crowd that filled the university’s Moody Coliseum. But the audience responded perhaps most vocally when the President conceded that all was not right, at least in the political world.

“For those of us in Washington,” he allowed, “it is high time to get our own house in order.”

With his attack on “declinists,” Bush suggested that his critics fell into the same category as those Americans who questioned capitalism during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and as former President Jimmy Carter did in the 1970s when he spoke of a “national malaise.”

Bush compared himself instead to former President Woodrow Wilson, who equated idealism with being American. But his speech otherwise clung to familiar turf as Bush espoused his domestic agenda and defended the economy against those who have raised doubts about its long-term health.

“I don’t recite these statistics so we can all pat ourselves on the back,” he insisted. “I just want to make a point: America is a strong nation, getting stronger, and we can learn from our success.”

Bush, who moved with his wife to Texas in 1947, made clear in the address that he regarded that cross-country journey as a metaphor for a nation’s quest for opportunity.

“Today’s America is still a rising nation . . . the country you’re inheriting offers the same limitless opportunities that it held for Barbara and me,” he said.

Later in the ceremony, he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree “for his role as concerned citizen and public servant and President of the United States.”