Bush Unable to Capitalize on Science Record

Unfortunately for President Bush--and perhaps a little unfairly--two memorable media fiascoes have machine-tooled an unflattering perception of his uneasy relationship with technology and technology policy.

The first fiasco featured the now-infamous supermarket scanner at a grocers’ convention earlier this year. Bush’s reported astonishment at seeing this new checkout scanner provoked howls about a President “out of touch” with everyday life and its technologies. It became the scanner that launched a thousand monologues. Though the White House dismissed the widely publicized story as fabricated hype, the image of a President not quite “with it” endured.

The second fiasco was far more substantive and revealing. Craig Fields, the director of the Pentagon’s innovative Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, was abruptly fired by the White House. Fields had a high profile in the technology policy arena, and his dismissal sent an unambiguous signal that the Bush Administration didn’t want its appointees promoting industrial innovation. The firing also created the impression of an Administration that considered government irrelevant to America’s technological competitiveness.

In reality, however, the Bush Administration has had a solid record of budgetary support for both science and technology. But that record has been obscured by a President unwilling or unable to articulate a compelling “vision thing” about these subjects. And Bush’s inner circle seems to consider a capital gains reduction as the best elixir for technological advance.

“We’ve done a lousy job of telling the public what the Administration has done in science and technology,” acknowledges Allan Bromley, Bush’s policy adviser on science and technology. “I happen to be convinced that George Bush has been more supportive of the science and technology base of this country than any President in recent memory. . . . In every budget that has been submitted, science and technology has been a first or second priority.”

That is not purely partisan sycophancy. One of the great ironies of the Bush Administration is that while the President pays little more than lip service to America’s non-defense technological prowess, the bureaucrats beneath him certainly do--albeit very carefully.

Indeed, Dr. Bernadine Healy’s National Institutes of Health has been criticized by the medical research community for encouraging greater private sector involvement. Continuing the emphasis enunciated by former Director Erich Bloch, the National Science Foundation is trying to better link basic research with applied technology.

“Look,” Bromley says, “if I have the choice between inserting my pet paragraph into the State of the Union speech or getting more money into the budget, I am going to always choose the latter. . . . Actions always speak louder than words; George Bush’s actions in terms of investments are greater and more sustained than any President in memory.”

That’s debatable. Particularly if you factor out the huge multibillion-dollar “big science” investments in the superconducting super-collider and the space station.

As Bromley well knows, verbal support from the President can be as valuable as a budget. With the notable--and political--exceptions of the space station, the supercollider and a ban on fetal tissue transplant research, George Bush has simply never made science and technology policy a personal or presidential priority.

In contrast, the Clinton/Gore campaign has made high-tech investment a core theme--much to Bromley’s annoyance.

“We were here first,” he declares. “The Clinton campaign has lifted so much of our efforts that it’s really amazing. . . . In basic science and technology, they’ve accepted what we’re doing and written it into their campaign. . . . That other stuff they want to do is industrial policy and picking winners.”

While the Administration’s record in this area outperforms its rhetoric, the sorry truth is that much of the President’s recent “genuine interest” in critical areas seems more motivated by a November deadline than anything else. It is this sort of political posturing that has allowed fiascoes to outshine the accomplishments.