Improving investment climate

Unlike other top leaders of Pakistan, Mr Shaukat Aziz, the new prime minister has candidly admitted that the law and order, and particularly terrorism, is the biggest problem his government faces. The attack on his life near Attock before his by-election is there to remind him how serious is the problem.

While other officials tend to play down the negative impact of the lawlessness and disorder in the national life, and single out terrorism for condemnation, Shaukat Aziz who has become the 23rd prime minister of Pakistan, gave the right priority to the problem when he spoke in the National Assembly after winning the vote of confidence.

He has promised a competent and responsible government which would be honest and hard-working. And he has committed himself to accountability in every sphere of life.

If he can ensure such a government through the hard work he is capable of, as he has shown during the last five years, he can solve many of the problems of the people. But will the government machinery cooperate with him in this stupendous task with earnestness and total devotion, or pursue its own self-seeking agenda?

He knows well that the ultimate result of continued lawlessness is terrorism, which having once begun, escalates as we have seen in our country. He perceives that the problem could not be combated through conventional means, as done hitherto.

He wants the law enforcing agencies to be reorganised and, in that, he may face resistance from the traditional establishment. He has hence included the judiciary, too, in the system to be reformed and made more effective.

It is not enough if he makes new rules to reform the system. He has to get rid of the anti-reform elements within the system along with the extensive deadwood. Cleansing the judiciary and ridding it of unwanted elements is a tough task as he will encounter stiff resistance from them. But he must reform it.

A series of books by former chief justices of Pakistan throws ample light on the rotten corners of the system and the way it can be reformed. It is not enough if the judges of the higher courts are paid far higher salaries and perquisites than before and equally lavish treatment given after retirement.

The judicial reforms have to run down the line from the top all the way to the bottom. But unless the police system is cleansed and made more helpful to the judicial process, the judiciary cannot be very effective.

If justice is to prevail in the country, the police have to arrest the right culprits in good time and produce them in courts instead of some of the professional witnesses.

They have to help get the right culprits convicted and actually punished instead of helping them run away from the court or the jail. Without an honest and efficient police, the best judiciary cannot be a success.

Transferring the police officers from their posts for a few weeks or months for serious lapses is no punishment at all. Rewards for good work and punishment for lapses should go together. Without that the people will not have faith in the police system.

Time is of essence. Justice delayed is indeed justice denied, particularly for the poor. If judgments will take too long a time to be delivered and then the rich convicts go on appeal, the poor will not seek the help of the judiciary; and the lawyers will demand inordinately high fees.

The plight of the poor fighting cases against their feudal lords in the villages is indeed pitiable. And too often the judgments are not enforced.

Because of such a break-down in the police and judicial system Mr Shaukat Aziz will find reforming these basic institutions an uphill task. And yet the government is borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for reforming the judiciary and police systems. And still more money is to be borrowed.

Mr Shaukat Aziz says Pakistan is no longer trotting out its begging bowl. Instead we are using our borrowing bowl in plenty. Let us make the best of that and evolve a judicial and police system that helps the people instead of making the poor poorer and feel oppressed and defrauded.

If such wrongs are checked the roots of half the terrorism in the country will be snapped and the poor will not feel the need to take to bombs and rockets to redress their grievances.

Return of peace and a better law and order situation is essential for promoting external as well as domestic investment. That is also necessary to reduce the cost of doing business in Pakistan and for attracting tourists from abroad.

We talk of tourism a great deal these days without creating the right environment for that. Besides, only an end to lawlessness can ensure free movement of people and a decline in kidnappings. These days in the interior of Sindh rich Hindus are the targets of kidnapping. Their school going children are not spared either when shifted to Karachi to ensure protection.

Businessmen or business executives of foreign companies do not like having many guards at their factories, their homes and to escort them as they move around. These days some of the guards of private security agencies themselves have taken to serious crimes. Evidently the system is degenerating.

Our officials tend to argue that there are more crimes in Bangkok or New York. But those cities have other compensatory features as well which the visitors love. But we have a few such features. The fact is that despite our best efforts or passionate pleas we have little foreign investment and less foreign tourists.

While he spoke of rooting out poverty he did not speak in detail about eliminating corruption which is eating away the vitals of our society. But he did speak of accountability and promise a competent and responsible government.

But such a government should not be good at the top of the official structure only. The masses do not deal with the top people in their day-to-day life. They deal with the junior most officials like policemen, Patwaris, teachers and WAPDA staff, junior judicial staff. These officials should be kept clean and made to behave in a responsible manner.

That may be an uphill task but he has to try. The junior ranks of officials have to be paid better as well as punished for acts of corruption. Some of these junior officials are conduits for pumping money to the top men of their departments. Such men too should be punished along with their bosses or the beneficiaries of the cash flow as a whole.

If Mr Shaukat Aziz wants to help the poor he has not only to promote employment opportunities but also hold down the real inflation. Instead of believing in the low official figures of corruption he should visit the vegetable market occasionally and ascertain the price rise.

If the architect of the German economic miracle Ludwig Erhard made it a point to drop into the market on his way to the office every day to ascertain vegetable price, Mr Shaukat Aziz could also do that occasionally or find other ways of knowing the real prices instead of relying on the official understated figures.

He wants to take the fruits of economic growth to the grassroots level. To do that, he has to strive to increase employment in a big way and raise wages from their lowest levels.

In this respect his friends and admirers from the business community can be very helpful instead of placing large advertisements in newspapers welcoming his arrival in office.

They should follow that up actually by investing far more on productive enterprises which create employment. They should not be asking him for more concessions and more tax relief but investing far more. They should be ready to lower their real profits for a five-year period and not what they show in their annual reports only.

He has to go all out to promote small and medium enterprises which need small capital but provide employment to a large number of persons. His friends in trade and industry should play a far larger role in direct employment creation.

Otherwise a feeling will get deeply ingrained among the people that businessmen think only of their self-interest and not of the interests of the people, and have little sympathy for the poor and down-trodden.

As he was assuming office Mr Shaukat Aziz faced a serious financial threat - in fact a threat to the economy as a whole from the soaring price of oil world wide. But luckily for him the world oil price has receded after touching a record 50 dollar a barrel. Most of the Opec are pumping more than their allotted quotas. The explosive situation in Iraq with its heavy toll of life is also easing.

Mr Shaukat Aziz has made many commitments. He has promised to develop the remote areas of the country, like Thar from where he won the by-election. His promises to the poor and the low income groups as a whole may be firm but unless the industrialists help him with large investment and create ample jobs his commitments to create more employment cannot be fulfilled adequately.

If the private sector does not make adequate investment the government should make larger investment in the public sector, says the Asian Development Bank. At the same time, the ADB has expressed its doubts about the ability of Pakistan to fully implement the Rs 202 billion Annual Development Programme.

In the first nine months of 2003-04 only 46 per cent of the projects out of Rs 160 billion were implemented, says the ADB. The government's capacity for implementing the Rs 202 billion programme is in doubt now. All that makes the task of Mr Shaukat Aziz real tough, but he has to try hard and hard.

Human rights violations in Iraq

Contrary to their expectations of a swift victory in Iraq, the coalition forces have become bogged down in endless violence as they face fierce opposition to the occupation.

Consequently, these forces, imbued with some bitterness, are committing brutal acts against the people, and stand in grave violation of human rights. There are reports in the media about the extensive loss of life and other heinous atrocities committed by the coalition forces.

The recent bombardment, carried out by these forces in the vicinity of Imam Ali's shrine in Najaf, among the most venerated Muslim sites, was an inhuman and sacrilegious act and has sent a wave of shock and indignation throughout the Islamic world.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also expressed his deep concern at the bombardment of the holy city by the coalition forces as a result of which hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands injured.

President General Pervez Musharraf has urged the United States to respect the sanctity of the holy sites in Iraq and to avoid civilian casualties there. One hopes that the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) immediately holds an emergency meeting to consider the grave situation.

For over a year, Amnesty International has been investigating human rights violations in Iraq by the coalition forces. In its latest report, the human rights body has revealed that countless abuses have been committed by these forces, since their occupation in March last year.

A large number of innocent people have been killed as a result of the excessive use of force, while scores of women have been molested by the soldiers. Human rights abuses have also been directed against children.

Human Rights Watch has also taken very serious note of these abuses. In its report, released recently, it has enumerated the violations in detail, particularly those committed in Abu Ghraib prison.

Ironically, US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has described the abuses at Abu Ghraib as "exceptional and isolated." However, according to the Human Rights Watch report, these abuses did not result from acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules.

They resulted from the decisions made by the Bush administration to bend, ignore or cast aside the rules even if it meant circumventing the Geneva Conventions and international law.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the severest abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred in the immediate aftermath of a decision by Secretary Rumsfeld himself to step up the hunt for "actionable intelligence" among Iraqi prisoners.

The officer who oversaw intelligence-gathering at Guantanamo was brought in to overhaul interrogation practices in Iraq, and a teams of interrogators from Guantanamo were sent to Abu Ghraib.

The commanding general in Iraq issued orders to "manipulate an internee's emotions and weaknesses". Military police were ordered by the military intelligence to "set up physical and mental conditions for favourable interrogation of witnesses".

The "Interrogation Rule of Engagement" at Abu Ghraib authorized coercive methods, such as the use of military guard dogs, to instil fear, in violation of the Geneva Conventions as well as of the UN Convention Against Torture.

According to the same report, the Pentagon and the US Justice Department developed a strange legal argument that the US president, as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, was not bound by the US or international laws prohibiting torture when acting to protect national security, and that such laws might even be unconstitutional if they hampered the war on terrorism.

When the White House legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, apprised President Bush of the worries of the US military leaders that these policies might "undermine the US military culture which emphasizes maintaining the highest standards of conduct in combat and could introduce an element of uncertainty in the status of adversaries", he completely ignored these warnings.

It may also be pertinent to mention that in May 2004, a member of the 377th Military Police Company told The New York Times that in Afghanistan, prisoners of war were declared as "enemy combatants", not subject to the Geneva and other Conventions which prohibit torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment to the people in occupied territory. This resulted in the increased violations of human rights by the occupation forces in that country.

Obviously, the same criterion must have been applied in Iraq, leading one to believe that human rights violations in that country are not isolated instances of aberration, as claimed by Rumsfeld, but in compliance with the official policy enunciated by the Bush administration.

The Human Rights Watch report has indeed unmasked the faces of those who are behind the abuses in Afghanistan and Iraq, and yet claim to be defenders of human values.

The government leaders of the coalition powers, at the highest level, have not only condemned the human rights violations in Iraq but have also pledged to bring those responsible to justice.

However, according to available information, very few members of the coalition forces have so far been changed with excesses and, thus, the pronouncements made by their leaders echo hypocrisy.

It is, however, the moral and legal responsibility of the Human Rights Commission, to ensure that the coalition powers fulfil their obligations under humanitarian law and bring the culprits to justice.

One also has reason to believe that the Human Rights Commission, which documented violations during Saddam Hussein's despotic rule, must have gathered similar information about the coalition forces since their occupation of Iraq.

It should not be difficult to bring the perpetrators of abuses in that country to justice on the basis of this information. It is also learnt that the representatives of many non-governmental organizations, working in the field of human rights, visited Iraq and Jordan and, after interviewing a large number of people, prepared a dossier on human rights violations by the coalition forces. These dossiers may also serve as corroborative evidence to prosecute the persons concerned, through a legal process.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Rejoicing or cynicism?

Rulers in Pakistan generally fall into one of two categories: (corrupt), (inept) military, coup-installed rulers, and corrupt, inept civilian-politician elected rulers.

Our latest prime minister - for there have been many - breaks the mould. Neither a military man nor a politician, he is what is admiringly/referred to as a 'technocrat'. Should we rejoice or harbour the usual cynicism?

Look at the manner in which Shaukat Aziz became our prime minister and there is precious little cause for celebration. Seldom have there been a more blatant exercise in political manipulation - of powers that be deciding behind closed doors who should and who should not hold the 'top' post in the country.

It started with Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali being ditched by 'his boss'. He was replaced by a Gujarat Chaudhry, who made it clear from the outset that he would only be serving the country as PM for a few months.

It was also made clear that the long-term holder of the position would be then-finance minister Shaukat Aziz. Note that we were told this at a time when the PM-designate did not even hold a seat in the National Assembly - let alone enjoy majority support in the house or in the country.

Having predicted who would be prime minister months before he even met the basic conditions for that post, everything was then done to make that prediction come true. Not one but two PML-Q loyalists resigned from their seats to allow Mr Aziz to 'contest'.

The outcome if the subsequent by-election in Attock was a foregone conclusion. The result in Tharparkar was also a foregone conclusion (who wouldn't want the would be prime minister as their local MNA and enjoy all the development perks that go with it?), but perhaps not the turnout.

In a backward, rural constituency in the heart of Sindh, with a sizable Hindu community, a history of poor electoral turnouts and a vote in the middle of summer, expecting active voter mobilization was a bit much.

Undeterred, supporters of the PM-designate ensured an unusually high turnout by stuffing ballot boxes. Election observers must have been perplexed by their failure to spot so many thousands of voters.

With a seat in the National Assembly, the next step was securing a majority vote in parliament. Pakistan's politicians helped here, displaying their usual inability to unite for a goal beyond their individual or party interests.

At the last minute they agreed to nominate Javed Hashmi as their joint candidate. Given that the PML-N leader is serving a 23-year jail sentence for, among other charges, sedition - he was never going to be allowed to address the assembly. The rest, as they say, is history: opposition boycott, 191 votes for Aziz, swearing-in by the president.

For all his faults, former prime minister, Jamali, could at least claim to have attained his post as a result of a process (albeit flawed) that involved the people. Aziz cannot make that claim.

The people of Pakistan (except the citizens of Attock and Tharparkar's invisible voters) were remarkably absent in Shaukat Aziz's rise to power. This is 'democracy' in Pakistan; a military ruler decides who will be prime minister, pliant politicians bend over backwards to make it happen, and sycophants hail the 'democratically elected' Aziz. What a joke.

So, if you look at how we gained our new PM, there is extremely little to rejoice about. But what of his much-vaunted 'technocracy'? Does that give cause for optimism?

The term 'technocrat' implies a person with skills, expertise, competence. In the context of government, it implies someone with an understanding of policy formulation and policy implementation: someone who will be able to deal with the complexities of running a country like Pakistan, and who possesses the mental calibre demanded of a national leader.

Shaukat Aziz's reputation as a technocrat stems from his 30-year service to international banking, and his almost five year service to Pakistan as Finance Minister.

Shaukat Aziz the banker is said to have performed well, and risen high in his career. Others, who saw his work, are in a better position to judge the accuracy of that assessment. But Shaukat Aziz the finance minister we can judge for ourselves: a native entity, he has performed that role in front of us.

Admirers of the FM point to the impressive figures for economic growth, foreign currency reserves, and domestic and foreign investment. But the rest of us - watching the same scene from a different angle - point to sustained unemployment, rising prices and a marked failure to eradicate (or even curb) poverty.

We see the widening gulf between rich (some extremely rich) and poor (some extremely poor) in this country. We see an economic recovery generated not by manufacturing and jobs, but by fear (9/11 drove expat Pakistanis to send their money home) and rewards (loans and debt write-offs for Pakistan's support in the war on terror). Our viewpoint takes much of the shine off the 'talented' Finance Minister.

But even with those question marks, critics and supporters alike agree that Aziz does possess sufficient intelligence and knowledge to understand how policies are made and implemented, how government functions and, in particular, how the economy works.

These are big advantages, particularly when you compare him with previous civilian rulers. Neither of the lead players in the 1990s had a great understanding of government: our Lahori PM was more interested in food than policies, while the 'Oxford graduate' was too busy making money and giving kickbacks to cronies to bother about running the country. We can at least be confident that Shaukat Aziz will perform better than them.

The other advantage for Aziz - one that poor Jamali certainly did not enjoy - is that he has the genuine confidence of Gen Musharraf. This means that he will be given some real power: unlike Jamali, he will not just be a figurehead. Note that this means autonomy to run the economy and formulate domestic policies - relating to health, education and other social sectors.

It most definitely does not mean autonomy to set foreign policy or make decisions concerning the 'war on terror'. Let's not get carried away here: remember who's the real boss.

Technocrats are also sought because they are seen as apolitical, or politically neutral. In a country like Pakistan which has been so badly served by its political leaders, and so badly affected by political in-fighting, this too is a very big plus.

Aziz owes his position first and foremost to Musharraf. The pressure on him to 'reward' political allies is, therefore, far less than that on conventional politicians. In theory this means less corruption and patronage.

Secondly, as a man with no strong political affiliation, he is in an infinitely better position to secure cross-party consensus and agreement on policies. Perhaps, for once, we have a leader with the will to do something for the people and with the political space to do so.

Of course, the cynic would point out that, as a political novice cushioned to date from the cut-throat world of Pakistani politics by his presidential patron, Aziz lacks the experience and skills required of a prime minister running such a complex, divided country. He is now, for the first time, entering the 'real world'. As the July 30 campaign rally in Attock showed, the real world can be a very unpleasant place.

On balance, then, rejoicing or cynicism? Actually, neither. One would have to be wearing very rose-tinted glasses to feel wholly optimistic about the new Aziz era.

But there is no need to be totally cynical either: despite his flaws, perhaps our 'technocrat' prime minister will genuinely prove different from his military and political predecessors. Perhaps he will be able to do something for the people of this country.... We can but hope.

E-mail: iffatidris2000@yahoo.co.uk.

Misjudgments that cost Bush his lead

No gloating, President Bush warned his White House staff in November 2002. It was an order he strained to follow himself. Flush with his success at leading Republicans to victory in congressional midterm elections, Bush claimed the results as a mandate for his policies on terrorism, Iraq and tax cuts, and for his brand of trust-my-gut conservatism.

"I think the way to look at this election is to say that people want something done," he told reporters. To sceptics at home and abroad, he declared: "I don't spend a lot of time taking polls . . . to tell me what I think is the right way to act; I just got to know how I feel."

As Bush attends the Republican National Convention in New York this week, the man who stood astride the political world at that news conference in 2002 is a distinctly more life-size figure. With the election just 65 days away, there is a puzzle: How did a leader who was so formidable become so vulnerable?

In small ways, the answer is an accumulation of miscalculations and missed opportunities that have marred the president's political operation this year, in the view of some Republicans inside that operation and others beyond it.

In a large way, however, Bush's predicament is less a reversal of his 2002 success than a natural progression of it - the consequence of two confrontations he sought that autumn.

To the dismay of Democrats, who suspected he was manipulating national security for political advantage, he invited the electorate two years ago to judge him over the then-looming confrontation with Iraq. To the delight of Democrats, it is precisely such judgments that polls say are shadowing his reelection campaign.

By the same token, his decision to confront Democrats directly and immerse himself in partisan electioneering ensured that he would face reelection with little of the rally-behind-the-leader sentiment that flowed to him after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

To the contrary, Bush's decisions and political style have virtually eliminated the political centre - sending all but a small percentage of Americans into fevered pro- and anti- camps - and dictated a general election strategy organized around exciting core supporters and increasing turnout.

This approach upends conventional reelection strategy, which holds that a president should mostly finish his base-tending the year before voting, and spend the general election softening his rhetoric and showering blandishments on independent voters in the ideological middle.

Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign's senior strategist, said the conventional strategy is obsolete in an election dominated by national security: "The same thing that appeals to our partisans appeals to those folks in the middle, which is: What are you going to do about terror?" Drawing a contrast with President Bill Clinton, Dowd added that both groups admire a president willing to take controversial actions to meet problems, rather than expending political capital on small-but-popular initiatives: "This is a president who decided to play big ball instead of small ball."

There are indications that, in the homestretch, Bush is planning to return to the milder brand of "compassionate conservatism" on which he ran in 2000. This week's GOP convention will feature such speakers as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who hold clear appeal to moderates, even though they have views on abortion and other social topics that are anathema to the party's conservative base.

Democratic strategists say they are surprised that Bush is making this pivot so late, and only this week planning to lay out more details of a proposed second-term agenda.

Without question, it is real-world facts - events in Iraq, the economy at home - that are shaping Bush's reelection prospects more than any decision about strategy, in the view of campaign operatives with the president and the Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.).

Even so, a variety of critical Democrats and anxious Republicans outside Bush's campaign believe that the long and mostly downward arc of Bush's political strength over the past year is also the result of some specific misjudgments. Two stand out as most important:

*The enactment of a prescription drug benefit under Medicare in December. The expectation was that by delivering on this promise, which is the most expensive expansion of government social benefits in 40 years, Bush would take away an issue that historically had belonged to Democrats.

As it happened, by passing a bill with mostly GOP support Bush did not reap much political gain. Polls show voters still strongly trust Democrats and Kerry more than Bush to protect senior citizens' health care, and many are wary of a benefit that is more complicated and slower to arrive than they wanted.

*The missed opportunity of the State of the Union address in January. Bush spoke to a large national television audience, but polls showed little movement upward in his support.

Critics said that in content and tone, much of his rhetoric seemed aimed at existing supporters of his Iraq and tax-cut policies rather than presenting new arguments to doubters.

He foreshadowed his support for a constitutional amendment to block gay marriage, which polls say is the most important issue for social conservatives, at the risk of alienating more tolerant independents who think the issue should be decided by states.

These large events were reinforced by several smaller ones, including what even some Bush political aides acknowledge were middling performances in a high-profile "Meet the Press" interview on NBC last winter and a news conference in the spring in which he professed himself stumped when asked whether he could think of any mistakes he had made.

In its own way, that answer was of a piece with the values Bush has followed at every major juncture of his presidency. It is a brand of politics that believes the assertion of power can create the reality of power - and that it is preferable to act boldly and make other politicians accommodate Bush's agenda rather than try to accommodate their doubts.

Bush did not offer coalition government after winning the contested 2000 election with a minority of the vote, nor did he offer to split the difference when Democrats complained that his tax cuts were too large. Instead, he corralled Republicans and a handful of Democrats and enacted the tax cuts into law.

In 2000, Bush campaigned expressly inviting a comparison of his leadership style and Clinton's. "They have not led; we will," he declared at his first nominating convention.

What has been striking about the past two years is the extent to which Bush has been a mirror opposite of Clinton. The comparison worked to his advantage in the fall of 2002.

Clinton's first midterm elections resulted in a massive repudiation of his party and majority control that Republicans have yet to surrender. The GOP gains after two years of Bush contradicted long history dictating that a new president's party loses seats in midterm elections.

There were few indications that Bush hit panic buttons last January. This was the same month that one of the White House's 2003 assumptions about the campaign - the president would be running against the antiwar Howard Dean - was overturned by Kerry's comeback success in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Even then, the assumption was that Bush's then-formidable financial lead could be used to fund advertising that would leave Kerry irrecoverably behind in polls by the time of his convention.

This did not happen, although Bush aides say they are pleased at polls showing that ads depicting Kerry as weak-willed and a flip-flopper have influenced public opinion.

The public posture of unyielding optimism about Bush's prospects and insistence that his strategy has worked creates a dissonance. Top Bush operatives such as Mehlman say they have been surprised that Kerry has not offered more policy substance to date, and other Bush aides are more blunt in bad-mouthing the Democrat as a weak candidate.

In the next breath, they say the campaign is happy with the president's posture - even though he is running even, with job approval ratings under 50 percent in most polls.

Surely, though, it would have come as a rude surprise if Bush strategists had been told a year ago that two months before the election the president would be running even with a man they regard as a clumsy opponent. In fact, the numbers illuminate a steady decline.

Bush's job approval in a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month was 47 percent, 11 points lower than a year ago. Even his core asset - the public's confidence in how he is handling terrorism - has dropped more than 20 points from the spring of 2003 to this summer, and stands in the mid-50s.

Some White House officials acknowledge they have not had a major success since the capture of Saddam Hussein in December, which provided a fleeting bump in polls. Some of these officials have begun what is the rare process of second-guessing themselves. For instance, some of Bush's senior aides believe they would be better off if they had preserved Medicare prescription drugs to use as a campaign issue.

But Dowd said no strategy was going to prevent the election from being a narrowly fought and highly polarized contest. "The dominant parties occupy 90 to 92 percent of the landscape. There are very few people that swing in the middle anymore," he said.

"We're playing within the 45- or 47-yard lines, so nobody's going to break away in this thing." Bartlett predicted that Bush's aggressive posture will pay dividends this fall, as even people who disagree with him on particulars appreciate that "there's no ambiguity where he stands."

Paraphrasing a hypothetical voter, Bartlett said, "Do I agree with everything Bush is doing? No. But on the big things, I feel pretty good about him, or reassured about him. If things go wrong again, I feel good about him being there." -Dawn/Washington Post Service