Next Tuesday an unhappy choice confronts the American people. To suffer a gloating Mark Steyn. Or to endure the sight of a jubilant Michael Moore thumping the air in the belief that he has just personally saved the world from military and ecological disaster. Grim though these alternatives are, with heavy heart we are minded to favour the first, and urge Americans to vote for Bush.
It is a cliché that this year’s presidential candidates are the least inspiring for years. American presidential candidates are always the least inspiring for years. Grimacing from across the Atlantic at the choice before the American people — hawk or super-hawk, right-wing nutcase or even more right-wing nutcase — Britain’s leader writers tend to dust down their standard ‘lesser of two evils’ piece and adjust where appropriate.
This is what The Spectator said on the contest between Bush and Gore four years ago: ‘Even within the United States many people remain unstirred by the contest between George Bush and Al Gore.’ We plumped for Bush then and it would be fair to say that even our modest expectations of the man have in some ways been disappointed. We wrote then: ‘Mr Bush would foster one of America’s great strengths compared with continental Europe — its unabashed enthusiasm for free enterprise.’ That, of course, was before Bush spent his way into a vast public deficit and imposed tariffs on imported steel to save a few thousand jobs in America’s rustbelt.
Much though we might enjoy advocating the defenestration of George Bush on the grounds of his protectionism, we are held back by the inevitable conclusion that on free trade his challenger would be even worse. Just read his website: ‘John Kerry and John Edwards know that we’re stronger when we create good paying jobs here, not ship them overseas.’
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