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American Morning

Bush Enjoys 77 Percent Approval

Aired May 03, 2002 - 08:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's taken some hits for his handling of the Middle East, but the American public is firmly in the president's corner, according to the latest poll numbers. Check this out. His approval rating, President George W. Bush, 77 percent. Seventy percent of Americans think he deserves to be reelected and 56 percent are ready to vote him in again right now. Bad news for Democrat wannabe presidents, at least. But the election is a ways away.

Here to talk about the pain and the popularity and the difficulty of striking the right note in the Middle East and in other issues that confront this nation is CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield.

I mentioned the Middle East as it relates to the poll numbers, but also the president found himself up against a Congress that didn't want to play ball with him on these resolutions supporting Israel. They both passed resolutions very, very strongly worded in favor of Israel. The White House wasn't real thrilled with that. What's going on here?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, it's a pretty classic situation. The Congress of the United States is squarely in Israel's corners. That's partly ideology, it's partly plain old politics. But when the American government goes abroad -- they've got this big peace conference they're planning this summer -- when they say to the Arab states in the Middle East we want to be honest brokers, they're going to look over their shoulder and say wait a minute, but your Congress is not only saying Israel can do almost no wrong, but the House resolution practically calls Yasser Arafat -- well, they don't exactly call him a world criminal, but it's very hostile to him.

And no administration wants to have its hands tied by a congressional statement on foreign policy.

CAFFERTY: So the perception and the reality are at odds here because there's no secret in this country that if you question a number of Americans, Yasser Arafat is perceived as a terrorist, as a villain in all of this, and as the problem vis-a-vis Israel resolving its problems there.

GREENFIELD: Yes, and part of the problem is that you don't, if you're in the diplomatic world, you don't get to pick and choose who you negotiate with. The late prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, used to say you don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies. But as long as the Congress is saying to, in these resolutions, to the world we stand squarely with Israel, any administration feels we'd rather they didn't say that, it makes our life more complicated.

CAFFERTY: Another member of the Bush family in the news this week for an entirely different reason. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, stood up and was addressing a drug summit when something interesting happened.

GREENFIELD: Yes, well, what happened, basically, was that he burst into tears because he was talking about the travails of his daughter, who'd been battling drugs. And I think there's a broader point here, which is that, you know, we're a very long way, fortunately, from the idea that real men don't cry. And I don't think anybody thought less of Jeb Bush because he shed tears talking about his daughter and her battle with drugs.

CAFFERTY: Sure.

GREENFIELD: In fact, he made a quip about all the Bushes cry. And I think that tells us something, as we'll see in a second, about how our culture has changed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: President Bush, son of Crawford, Texas, the candidate of the ranch, the NASCAR candidate, the guy candidate, was comfortable letting his emotions out in the days after September 11. Did anyone see this as a sign of weakness?

Ronald Reagan would often choke up on the stump while telling a story about American heroism or tragedy. Some even accused him of choking up on cue. No one, friend or foe, ever saw it as a sign of weakness.

When Senator Bob Dole, WWII hero, returned to his home town of Russell, Kansas and remembered how the townspeople put money in a box at the local restaurant to help pay for his medical care after his near death injury, he would weep at the memory. Any political damage here? Of course not.

SENATOR ED MUSKIE: Attacking me, attacking my rights, he has proved himself to be a gutless crowd.

GREENFIELD: Now, here, by contrast, is one case where there was political damage. In the 1972 New Hampshire primary, Senator Ed Muskie went to the offices of the "Manchester Union Leader" to rebut an attack, a false attack, it turned out, on his wife. As he spoke of her, his voice choked with emotion. And was that a tear on his cheek or a snowflake? We'll never know. But back then, it cost Muskie dearly.

And when Representative Pat Schroeder announced she would not be running for president in the 1988 campaign, her emotions got the best of her. Was it sexism that caused the criticism or was it that her reaction was simply over the top? (END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: Now, there's something, more, Jack, than a cultural change at work here. I think anyone who saw those police and firefighters after September 11, some of the toughest and bravest people in the world, weeping openly at the loss of their colleagues and their friends, the whole idea that that was somehow a sign of weakness was so ridiculous that I think it just blew that completely off the charts.

CAFFERTY: But the change began before September 11, this willingness to accept the honest display of real emotion, that people are human and they feel things and sometimes it shows, even if they're public officials.

GREENFIELD: Oh, I think it actually goes back, in part, to the very start of the women's movement and the argument that men were armored, they wouldn't show their emotions. And you can get carried away. One of the interesting things is I think people make a distinction between an honest display of emotion and weeping out of some narcissistic self-interest, like my book didn't sell well enough. No, no, no, no, no, no.

CAFFERTY: Yes, that's right.

GREENFIELD: Don't cry about that.

CAFFERTY: That's not a good reason.

GREENFIELD: No.

CAFFERTY: No. All right, Jeff, good to see you, as always. Thank you.

CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield.

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