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It's time for change in the White House
Our View: The Spokesman-Review endorses George Bush for president.
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John Webster
For the editorial board

The White House needs a good scrubbing. The executive branch of federal government needs a new attitude.

The Spokesman-Review endorses George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who offer the integrity, the policies and the fresh, bipartisan approach to governing that our country needs.

During the past eight years the U.S. economy boomed -- in spite of anti-business attitudes of the Clinton/Gore administration, which attacked Microsoft for its competitive success, throttled the Northwest's natural resource industries and threatened our hydroelectric dams.

During these same eight years, Americans became increasingly cynical, disillusioned and divided about politics -- this, the result of an administration that specialized in spin, manipulation, triangulation, obfuscation. An administration that often preferred combat with Republicans to the search for middle ground. An administration that had every opportunity to reform Social Security and Medicare. Instead of fixing those problems, it highlights them in campaigns, working to scare the elderly about needed reforms.

And in his August acceptance speech, Gore demagogued against corporations and capitalists, the real source of jobs and prosperity.

We can do better.

As governor of Texas, Bush worked with a Democratic Legislature to improve student achievement in public schools. He required power plants to clean up air emissions. He boosted spending on child care and parks. He pulled the Republican Party toward the center, challenging the religious right to turn from its worst instincts to its best instincts -- compassion and service.

Those who dislike Bush's politics accuse him of a weak grasp of detail. But the critics overlook Gore's gaffes, and the fact that policy wonks (consider Jimmy Carter) tend to lose their way in thickets of arcane argumentation. Good leaders, like Bush, rally the nation for reform. Good leaders become great if they're willing to hire aides of superior ability, integrity and independence. Bush has said he'll give Gen. Colin Powell a post in his Cabinet and has picked as his running mate Dick Cheney, who showed in Thursday's debate the thoughtful, bipartisan competence that the executive branch needs.

Bush and Cheney are Westerners who trust Americans to be free, to manage their own affairs, to keep and invest more of their own earnings. They are business people who realize it's irresponsible and dangerous for the most consumptive nation on earth to drive natural resource industries abroad. They intend to shore up the underfunded U.S. military, still essential to world stability. And their call for compassionate conservatism is refreshing, raising hopes that the private, faith-based sector will become a player in the second phase of welfare reform, giving people dignity and help in ways that couldn't be done by the past century's patronizing handouts and bossy regulations.

Voters who want leaders they can trust should choose leaders who trust the people they serve.

John Webster/For the editorial board

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