COLUMN LEFT / BOB GUCCIONE JR. : Clinton Is Just Our Proxy to Excise a Tumor : Unseating George Bush is enough to justify the election of Bill Clinton, whatever his assets.

For young adults in America to have an opportunity in this country, it is imperative that George Bush be voted out of office on Nov. 3. If Bush, who openly displays his political obligations, is reelected, he will sell off those parts of the American soul and future he has already mortgaged.

And I say that without one wit of enthusiasm for Bill Clinton. In my opinion, Clinton has done very little to inspire any particular hope other than that he might unseat Bush. But that’s enough to justify his election, and if you have no more expectation of Clinton than that, you won’t be disappointed and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Basically, one of the encouraging things about Clinton is that he looks innocuous. He doesn’t look dangerous the way Bush did in ‘88--he doesn’t look as if he has been driven his whole life to want the helm of the Free World, prepared to do absolutely anything necessary, moral or otherwise, to get behind that wheel. Nor does he seem to be carrying a bulging suitcase of debts to extremist groups who have helped him.

So this election is only ostensibly about Bush vs. Clinton--it’s not even really about a clash of ideologies. When you boil it down, you find there actually aren’t any ideologies, just the vapors of the illusion of such: Bush’s ballyhooed “family values” nonsense is just advertising dressing for right-wing fanaticism, to appease and appeal to right-wing fanatics, and Clinton’s echoes of the ‘60s ideologies is similarly empty rhetoric, except that at least it’s better rhetoric.

So, in a sense, forget about whether Clinton will make a great President, because a) he probably won’t, but, he might; and b) it’s not important. What’s more important is preventing Bush from logging another four years in the White House.

This is an election between the next generation of American adults and Bush and his extreme conservative factions, who have already had a strangling effect on America and, in 12 years, have turned this country from a problematic but intellectually and socially progressive nation into an infinitely more problematic and desperately regressive society, rife with racism, poverty, illiteracy and general social abandonment. Bill Clinton is merely our proxy. Clinton-Gore is the instrument by which we can remove the growing malignant tumor of Bush-Quayle.

If George Bush was the chief executive of any other public company, he’d be fired, if not prosecuted. His performance domestically has been atrocious--we all know that. Even he can’t claim any triumph in four years that isn’t either a distortion of the truth (for instance the civil-rights bill, finally passed in ‘91, which he rigorously opposed but was forced by his own party defectors to accept) or something hopelessly unresolved, such as the Gulf region situation.

His failures, which are innumerable, he blames on everyone else--Congress and the Democrats particularly, and long-dead former presidents for special occasions, like L.B.J. for the L.A. riots.

This election is not a noble battle between two social visionaries with differing opinions on how to make America even greater and safer, it’s a true civil war. Behind the saccharin euphemisms about “Family Values” is a coldblooded agenda to essentially loot America, economically and socially, and give amnesty to those who already looted it.

Everyone knows America is in sad shape. The Democrats may not have all the answers or the brightest bulbs for President and vice president, but they at least are addressing the questions. The Republican campaign is more focused because it’s singularly selfish, determined to preserve only the values of its like-minded constituents. Vote for us, it says, and we won’t tax the wealthiest (who can most afford it), or inhibit big business with essential environmental restrictions. We’ll restrict freedom of speech while sticking even more religion down people’s throats, and our policies will continue to polarize the conditions in the ghetto.

The Republican political machine has a vision of America: racist, misogynistic, elitist, cynical and cowardly, hiding behind the hijacked images of God and mother. With great determination and self-interest, the GOP fights for the status quo because it favors Republicans. And they don’t care that the price is the continuing pain and hardship of the majority of people.

I don’t know how deeply Bill Clinton cares about the average person, but George Bush has emphatically demonstrated how little he cares. Let’s vote him out and be done with this sorry, dark chapter of our history.