President Meets the Public in Talk Show-Style Politics

In a precedent-shattering spectacle staged on the White House lawn for a network morning show, dozens of ordinary Americans got a chance Wednesday to confront President Bush with the type of on-camera questions that have become a hallmark of the 1992 campaign.

Appearing in the Rose Garden, which incumbent presidents traditionally have used as shelter from the political rough-and-tumble, Bush opened himself up to questions that--while respectfully asked--cut to the quick of his current problems.

And his responses during the 82-minute encounter with individuals plucked from a White House tourist line offered a revealing look both at the bewilderment and the plain-spoken confidence that shape his outlook on what he has called a “crazy” election year.

Asked by Matthew Becker, a deputy sheriff from the Northern California town of Pleasanton, why Americans should vote for him, Bush stumbled through a response listing his domestic programs before reverting to a surprisingly humble theme that is fast becoming the bottom line of his reelection campaign.

“I think in the final analysis, people are going to say: ‘Who has the experience, who has the temperament to take on these big problems day in and day out?’ ” he said.

“Not that I’m perfect,” he continued, “but that I have a proven record of being tested by fire, and I think that’s a good qualification. I think that’s a good reason to ask for some more time as President.”

This theme has become the centerpiece for the Bush campaign. “Even if the country is full of Angst (in November),” campaign general chairman Robert A. Mosbacher said in an interview, “Bush will be the lesser of three evils.”

Bush’s television appearance was arranged and broadcast by the CBS “This Morning” program.

In his debut in this year’s talk-show style of politics, Bush was treated relatively gently by the audience of 125 tourists seated in folding chairs in the enclosed Rose Garden. Adjacent to the Oval Office, the Rose Garden is usually reserved for official press conferences and presidential ceremonies.

Both undeclared candidate Ross Perot and Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas, the presumptive Democratic nominee, have made the talk-show tour a staple of their presidential campaigns. Bush had been resisting such forums as demeaning to his office.

His maiden appearance was slated to last an hour, but he consented to stay on the air for an additional 22 minutes. Afterward, he mingled with the audience and took the children among them for a tour.

The staging brought a rare informal mood to the pristine setting, with program hosts Paula Zahn and Harry Smith circulating through the audience to hold microphones for those posing questions for the President.

While Bush has submitted to similar questioning in events organized by his reelection campaign, the unfiltered composition of the group and its intrusion into off-limits White House terrain made for a rare exchange between President and public.

Several times, the President found himself confronted with questions about broken 1988 campaign promises. Thrown on the defensive over abandoning his “read my lips, no new taxes” vow, he offered a startling new rationale for his decision to do so in the summer of 1990.

The United States was “moving forces to the Persian Gulf at the time,” Bush said, and when a standoff developed with Congress over taxes, he backed down on his pledge because “I was determined to keep the funding going” for the military effort.

What was puzzling about this explanation was that Bush broke the no-new-taxes pledge on June 26, 1990--more than a month before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that year. He apparently confused his June retreat on the no-taxes promise with his October, 1990, decision to accept a budget compromise with Congress that included higher taxes.

Bush nevertheless made clear that he would not recycle the no-taxes promise during the current campaign.

“You think I’m going to go in and trap myself again and get to go through all that?” he asked. He conceded that those who had been skeptical about his ability to make good on the pledge had been “proved right.”

When the CBS hosts proved more persistent than audience members in posing confrontational questions, Bush sought to speak directly to American voters by suggesting he was not being treated fairly by the news media.

“Let me ask this question to your listeners,” he said. “Why is it that it’s the correspondents that have the controversy about Iraq or the polls or what I want to say about Ross Perot, when the American people want to know what I am doing about the problems (and) how to answer their problems?”

Bush’s remarks also served to vent the personal frustration that has lent an increasingly temperamental tone to his recent appearances.

After complaining in speeches Monday that he was not getting adequate credit for the success of Operation Desert Storm or the signs of a reviving economy, he voiced exasperation Wednesday with his campaign’s inability to overcome voter discontent.

“What do you tell the kids?” he asked the North Carolina man, Roy Harris, who invited Bush to his Asheville home to deliver the message in person to his two young children. “How do you give them hope when all they hear is gloom and doom every single night? Economy recovering, and yet all the reports are 80% to 90% of them that the economy’s getting worse.

“And it’s not. How do you tell a little kid things aren’t all bad in this great country of ours? Crazy political year where everybody points out everything that’s wrong about America. I’d like to talk to them because I think they got a great future, an optimistic future.”

Bush refused to directly criticize his rivals, and even sounded a conciliatory note toward them.

“I know Ross Perot. I know Bill Clinton,” he said. “In my heart there is no animosity. The American people know I am not a hater.”