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Kosovo culture clash
War criminals in the former Yugoslavia are getting a free ride from French and American peacekeepers.
By Laura Rozen
[12/21/99]

Black like who?
Mumia Abu-Jamal may be a symbol of racism to the celebrity set, but to most black people, he's just a scary character who probably got what he deserved.
By Debra Dickerson
[12/21/99]

The roots of a hostage crisis
The angry Cuban detainees in Louisiana are just some of the illegal immigrants trapped in the INS's permanent limbo.
By Robert Bryce and Lisa Tozzi
[12/20/99]

She's leaving home
Hillary Clinton is finally striking out on her own. But will she ever figure out who she really is?
By Joan Walsh
[12/20/99]

To the moon, Al
Al Gore and Bill Bradley square off in New Hampshire, with Ted Koppel cast in the role of marriage counselor.
By Jake Tapper
[12/18/99]

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True, some of the rhetorical arrows in Gore's new quiver are somewhat questionable. He slams Bradley for refusing to rule out tax increases, despite the fact that he fundamentally holds the same position. His campaign hires a guy to dress up as a chicken and run out onto the court of Madison Square Garden during the climax of Bradley's basketball fund-raiser. He gathers seniors and the disabled 'round the campfire to tell them that Bradley wants to end their Medicaid -- while failing to add that Bradley does plan to replace Medicaid with another program.

"It's classic Al Gore," Republican Sen. John McCain assessed last week. "Attack, attack, attack."

And it's working. Gore's pummelling is clearly getting to the remote Bradley, rattling him, dislodging him from his talking points and diminishing his debate performances. Additionally, Gore's charges are clearly being heard out in the hinterlands where Bradley's momentum has slowed. In New Hampshire, for instance, where Bradley was once several points ahead of the vice president, according to polls, the two are now neck and neck.

Some of Gore's campaign charges are of questionable fairness and accuracy. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication, goes so far as to call a few of them "false," telling NBC's Lisa Myers last Friday that Gore has made "clear, documentable distortion(s) of Bradley's position."

But amidst the obnoxious and occasionally misleading charges, Gore is asking some questions about Bradley's health care proposal that are completely fair.

"I don't believe that candidates should come out with plans as detailed as the health care proposal Bradley came out with," said Robert Reischauer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. "When you put forward a whole bunch of specifics, they just end up killing you."

Take Gore's dispute with Bradley over Medicare funding, for instance. Gore has proposed funneling 15 percent of the budget surplus into the Medicare trust fund and has hammered Bradley for not making a similar proposal.

Gore put this question directly to Bradley at the Dec. 17 debate in Nashua, N.H., hosted by ABC's "Nightline."

"Since you do not set aside any of the [budget] surplus to strengthen Medicare," Gore asked, "and since everybody knows the population of Medicare recipients is going to double over the next 30 years, and since there's a shortage in some parts of Medicare now, what other proposals are you going to make to strengthen Medicare?"

Bradley, noting that Medicare is "solid until 2017 in this country," said that Medicare funding would be helped by better disease management, major breakthroughs in drugs and the fact that "there is a great probability that people who enter Medicare 10, 15 years from now will be healthier because they have been exercising, not smoking."

Seizing on this last observation, on Monday in Des Moines, Iowa, the Gore campaign sent a caravan of senior citizens to stand outside Bradley events doing jumping jacks. "The Bradley plan for Medicare: No additional funding and more exercise," read a Gore 2000 press release.

But, looking past the old folks doing jumping jacks, what about the Gore campaign's charges that he plans to address the coming bankruptcy of Medicare, and Bradley does not?

The truth is that "neither one of the candidates really addresses the real problem," said Reischauer.

Next page | Should we make benefits more generous, or cover more people?