What to Give the President on His Birthday
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: What kind of birthday gift would you give to the leader of the free world?</s>LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: There's an interesting question. CNN's Bruce Morton has a few ideas for some presidential presents.</s>BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What do you give a president who has -- well, not everything, but lots? Maybe, first, the gift of reading character, so that when he says of a leader like Russia's Vladimir Putin, "i found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy," he's right. It can happen. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, when she first met Mikhail Gorbachev, pronounced him someone the West could do business with. Quite right, of course. Didn't end well for Gorbachev, but it did for Thatcher and Ronald Reagan -- no doubt about that. Another gift? Maybe a session with Bob Dole, or the ghost of Lyndon Johnson, on the art of compromise. Bush took office saying he wanted to change the partisan atmosphere in Washington. He was criticized at first for not compromising on, for instance, his tax bill. lately, he's been compromising on all sorts of things: The U.S. will stop bombing Vieques, but not right now. We'll open some more Gulf of Mexico waters for oil exploration, but not as much as we'd planned to. He's apparently looking for a compromise on stem-cell research, and so on. But his compromises don't make people happy. Vieques got both sides angry, for instance. Dole and Johnson had a knack for issuing soothing syrup, making deals which left everyone feeling contented. Maybe that syrup would have helped keep Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords in the G.O.P. fold. But the best present? That's easy. The best present would be for one, or two, or three Democratic senators to experience an epiphany. To cast their eyes toward the heavens and announce, "Was blind, but now I see. I am a Republican!" Even one would do it -- a Zell Miller, they had hopes for him: A Mary Landrieu, a Tom Daschle. Now, that would get the pundits percolating. But any Democrat would do. Then, of course, compromise would matter less, the G.O.P. would once again control both House and Senate. (on camera): True, Mr. Bush would still have to deal with those pesky moderates in both parties, but there's another gift -- transform them into conservatives, and while you're at it, compassionate ones. (voice-over): There's one problem, of course, you'd need to be God to give most of these gifts. If you're looking for something simpler to send the president, how about a nice tie? He wears blue a lot. Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.