Thursday, March 28, 2024 Mar 28, 2024
48° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Publications

SENSE OF THE CITY An American Dream

By Chris Tucker |

I was nodding off in front of the set, drowsily listening to CNN’s sumo pundits staging another ideological food fight. They gibbered away, flinging gobbets of abuse. Look, John, the polls show the American people know that Ollie North’s attack on Clinton’s Sarajevo policy means that a capital gains tax on spotted owls will never fly! No, Bob, the polls show that…

So I fell asleep, and awoke to the greatest October surprise of them all.

They still won’t say whose idea it was (nobody wants to hog the credit), but Ross Perot, Bill Clinton and George Bush met on an island Perot owned-maybe Hawaii- and worked out the deal that saved America. Behind all their rhetoric, the three knew, like everybody else, that the ’92 election was going to be a disaster for the country. Perot, afraid of going down in history as a laughingstock, had re-entered the race because Bush and Clinton weren’t serious about the deficit. Of course, they couldn’t propose anything serious because that would mean higher taxes and fewer entitlements: in other words, certain defeat for the bearer of bad news. Whether Perot tipped a few states to Clinton, Bush or both, the muddled three-way race would produce no clear mandate for anyone to do anything. We were staring at four more years of drift and deadlock.

So the miracle began. The three men decided to set aside their egos and petty feuds, break the shackles that bound them to narrow interest groups and make the system work again. Once they announced their desire to run on die United for America ticket, the tide of change swept the land. In less than a week, Congress and the states had ratified the 27th Amendment providing for a dual presidency-one president for foreign affairs (Bush) and one for domestic (Clinton). On November 3, a record turnout of 99 percent elected co-presidents Clinton and Bush, whose first public act was to order the entire defense budget transferred to help close the deficit. “Don’t cry for me, General Dynamics, ’cause we’re in Peace City,” said Bush in his inaugural address, flanked by a beaming Colin Powell. Clinton made his inaugural speech surrounded by disabled veterans in front of the Vietnam Memorial, declaring, “I’ll be there for you guys until the last dog dies.”

Harmony and good will spread across the world. The Europeans pitched in millions to wipe out our national debt. The United Nations, aided by a billion-dollar gift from Perot, stopped the fighting in Yugoslavia and the starving in Somalia.

In short order, the world changed, and America was renewed. In Dallas, New York, San Francisco and other major cities, millions demonstrated for higher gasoline taxes, demanding that the money be used to spur mass-transit programs. The Congress voted unanimously to impose three-term limits on itself and to expel anyone who went more than 18 months without a good idea.

With Clinton blowing sax. Sister Souljah and Ice-T released a rap single, “End the Fight, Black and White,” with all proceeds going to AIDS research. The 362,000 lawyers of the American Bar Association, led by new Attorney General Tom Luce, joined forces with Jimmy Carter and Habitat for Humanity to rebuild the inner cities of Los Angeles and other blighted urban areas. The lawyers jokingly dubbed themselves “Snakes with Rakes,” and the public loved it. There were raised eyebrows when televangelist Bob Tilton emptied his coffers for the cause, but in dreams anyone can change.

That includes Dan Quayle, who’s now the happiest golf pro that Indianapolis has ever seen. The guy never looks scared anymore. Of course his modest salary meant that Marilyn Quayle had to go back to work. She and her partner Hillary Clinton are doing a great job helping abused kids sue their parents.

Thanks to more funds from Perot, the White House was converted into a giant homeless shelter and drug rehab center. That’s just as well, since Bush prefers to work at the United Nations building and Clinton runs domestic policy out of a converted Greyhound known as Rolling Thunder One.

Here at home, things are really booming again. The Meyerson Symphony Center has undergone its own transformation into low-income apartment units. It was Mort Meyerson’s idea. He’s loving his new job as ambassador to Tibet, and he’s getting along fine with the Dalai Lama. And there’s even better news: After Ray Hunt and Harold Simmons pulled off a leveraged buy-out of IBM, they moved the entire operation to southern Dallas County. With Steve Bartlett as CEO and Al Lipscomb in charge of minority outreach, they’re expecting a record year. Thanks to the new DART subways, workers can get there in minutes from anywhere in the county.

As for Ross Perot, he’s redeemed himself. When he strode unannounced onto the Larry King show, accompanied by those first returning MIA’s, all was forgiven. Perot turned down the Treasury spot, saying he’d seen enough money to last him a lifetime. Since he gave away his fortune, he and Mar-got have rented a little garage apartment be-hind one of those big houses on Swiss Avenue. Yeah, he’s still got that old station wagon he drove Barbara Walters around in back when this whole thing got started, And here’s the beauty part: He looks happy. Be sure to wave when you see him.

Related Articles

Local News

LeadingOff (3/28/24)

It's a beautiful day for some baseball.
Image
Baseball

Bobby Sessions Gets You Hyped for Opening Day

He narrates the Texas Rangers' 2024 hype video.
Image
Travel

Is Fort Worth Really ‘The New Austin’?

The Times of London tells us it's now the coolest city in Texas.
Advertisement