• Text smaller   • Text bigger  The first debate is over, and
Bush came out quite all right. It wasn’t a rip-roaring victory,
but it was enough of a victory. The only thing Bush couldn’t
adequately answer was Gore’s repeated assertion that the Bush
tax plan would give the 1 percent richest people in America the
biggest tax break. Gore hammered away at that point even though
the question that Jim Lehrer asked had nothing to do with the
subject. And that idea will remain in people’s minds until Bush
provides an adequate answer. What Bush could have said is that
that same 1 percent pays something like 40 percent of the taxes
collected by the IRS, and that it is only fair to let them keep
more of their money.  Gore played the class-warfare, rich-poor
envy card to the hilt. His face kept reshaping itself after each
word. It was like watching a plastic doll have an epileptic fit.
Gore said nothing new. He reiterated everything he’s been saying
since the convention. Bush on the other hand offered a vision of
the fut