Vision Thing

Toward the end of her State of the City address this week, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake took a pointed swipe at her challengers in this year's election, who have been criticizing her for failing to articulate a transformative vision for the city. After noting accomplishments of the past year, Ms. Rawlings-Blake called for a 10-year plan for the city's finances. The idea, she said, is to answer "fundamental questions" of how the city pays for vital services, whether it can live without others, what it can afford in employee benefits and how it can reduce reliance on property taxes — a major theme of her challengers.

Toward the end of her State of the City address this week, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake took a pointed swipe at her challengers in this year's election, who have been criticizing her for failing to articulate a transformative vision for the city. After noting accomplishments of the past year, Ms. Rawlings-Blake called for a 10-year plan for the city's finances. The idea, she said, is to answer "fundamental questions" of how the city pays for vital services, whether it can live without others, what it can afford in employee benefits and how it can reduce reliance on property taxes — a major theme of her challengers.

SO MANY people are now running for president that it makes your head spin. Republicans have candidates you've never heard of. Every time the newspapers print another list of Republican candidates I examine it warily to make sure I'm not on it.Democrats so far have only President Clinton. Amazingly, he is trying hard to keep other Democrats from running.There are other amazing things about Bill Clinton. For instance, he started running for a second term even before he was inaugurated for the first.

It's hard to believe it has only been two years since a Bush administration official was mocking "the reality-based community" to the writer Ron Suskind. Since then, there has been a lot of reality - most of it in Iraq, and none of it pretty - and this week it finally caught up with Washington. In comes Robert M. Gates, the president's nominee as defense secretary, to put the stamp of the Republican Party's realist wing on U.S. policy in Iraq. It's a big retreat from idealism, or at least the idealism that marked the Bush administration's hopes to remake the Middle East.

AMERICANS want change, not more talk of change. This was made clear on Nov. 3 when fed-up residents of 14 states -- including California, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Texas -- voted to limit the number of years their representatives can serve in Congress.If the Clinton team's election strategy was to focus on the economy, its governing strategy should be to focus on the real dissatisfactions that have led to the term-limits movement. The new administration will be under intense pressure from or ganized interest groups -- ranging from the AFL-CIO and National Education Association (NEA)

BOSTON - Maybe I shouldn't be hard on the president for flunking his pop quiz on foreign policy. After all, it wasn't a take-home exam, and he didn't have Dick Cheney by his side. But when a reporter at the prime-time news conference asked what errors he had made and what lessons he had learned, the president was stumped. "I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet," he said.

THE ORIOLES might not be winning a lot of games, but they sure have a lot of vision. They have Mike Hargrove's vision of a coaching staff. Jim Beattie's and Mike Flanagan's vision of a manager. Earl Weaver's vision of a pitching coach. Peter Angelos' vision of an ace. (Make no mistake, he pushed for Sidney Ponson's signing after spending so much to bolster the batting order.) Remember when then-vice president George H.W. Bush referred to "the vision thing" during the 1988 presidential campaign?

PRESIDENT BUSH has three big problems right now: the vision thing, the wimp thing and the rich thing. Together, they mean that Bush is in a far weaker position at a 53 percent approval rating in the polls than President Reagan was in the fall of 1982, when he was at 43 percent in the polls.Reagan's loss of public support was damaging. Bush's could be politically fatal. Indeed, Bush's political position is so weak that his ability to lead the nation in a foreign military engagement is very much in question.

Could the American public have a longer attention span than the political partisans and media sharpshooters who skulk about inside the Beltway?With few exceptions, critics found last month's State of the Union address intolerably long, as if the clock gave the most important measure of its value.Mr. Clinton had more to sell, we are told, than a salesman at IKEA. But so what? It's a big country. Somebody has to challenge it.We are told the president was undisciplined, his language "soggy" and "weightless."

On an unseasonably warm winter day, I walk around the garden, trying to imagine what it will look like in July. It's a kind of planning perambulation before sitting down with the seed catalogs. As I gaze across the space that until last year held 30-odd tomato plants annually - enough for 60 quarts of homemade spaghetti sauce, 50 of canned tomatoes with bushels to spare - I suddenly feel as though somewhere along the line, I've lost the vision thing. I can't quite imagine what next summer's garden is supposed to look like.

THE ORIOLES might not be winning a lot of games, but they sure have a lot of vision. They have Mike Hargrove's vision of a coaching staff. Jim Beattie's and Mike Flanagan's vision of a manager. Earl Weaver's vision of a pitching coach. Peter Angelos' vision of an ace. (Make no mistake, he pushed for Sidney Ponson's signing after spending so much to bolster the batting order.) Remember when then-vice president George H.W. Bush referred to "the vision thing" during the 1988 presidential campaign?

BOSTON - Maybe I shouldn't be hard on the president for flunking his pop quiz on foreign policy. After all, it wasn't a take-home exam, and he didn't have Dick Cheney by his side. But when a reporter at the prime-time news conference asked what errors he had made and what lessons he had learned, the president was stumped. "I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet," he said.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's greatest asset is not his former special assistant, Karen Hughes, who will soon be returning to "active duty" to help him with his re-election campaign. It is his wife, Laura. I was reminded of this during an interview with her Thursday for my Fox News Channel show. Mrs. Bush can keep her cool, even when prodded with selected quotes about her husband from prominent liberals: "A miserable failure" -- Rep. Richard A. Gephardt "A bumbling governor from Texas with a terrible record, who couldn't put three sentences together with a cue card" -- Ralph Nader "A moral coward" -- Al Gore And from Sen. John Kerry: "The Bush administration has run the most inept, reckless, arrogant and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country."

On an unseasonably warm winter day, I walk around the garden, trying to imagine what it will look like in July. It's a kind of planning perambulation before sitting down with the seed catalogs. As I gaze across the space that until last year held 30-odd tomato plants annually - enough for 60 quarts of homemade spaghetti sauce, 50 of canned tomatoes with bushels to spare - I suddenly feel as though somewhere along the line, I've lost the vision thing. I can't quite imagine what next summer's garden is supposed to look like.

DID THE TWO candidates have the courage of their convictions? Did they connect on a visceral level with us? Do they have the right stuff? Overall, like characters in an existential drama, both candidates were so self-aware that they became incapacitated. They couldn't engage us. They didn't soar. Both Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush were overly distracted by the minutiae -- not only of policy, but of presentation. Mr. Gore, after the first debate, was told not to sigh. Mr. Bush was warned about his loose, vague, colloquial responses about complex foreign affairs.

IN AN age when most politicians have a tough time with "the vision thing," it's inspiring to recall the life of a man whose career exemplified vision and courage.Terry Sanford, who died last month at the age of 80, served only four years as governor of North Carolina, forbidden by the state's constitution to serve two successive terms.But in those four years, he put a progressive stamp on the state that survives today, despite the best efforts of conservatives such as Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, who has served far longer in public office.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's greatest asset is not his former special assistant, Karen Hughes, who will soon be returning to "active duty" to help him with his re-election campaign. It is his wife, Laura. I was reminded of this during an interview with her Thursday for my Fox News Channel show. Mrs. Bush can keep her cool, even when prodded with selected quotes about her husband from prominent liberals: "A miserable failure" -- Rep. Richard A. Gephardt "A bumbling governor from Texas with a terrible record, who couldn't put three sentences together with a cue card" -- Ralph Nader "A moral coward" -- Al Gore And from Sen. John Kerry: "The Bush administration has run the most inept, reckless, arrogant and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country."

Pieces of column too short to use . . .Quote of the day comes from Andrew Lang's introduction to "The Vision of Don Roderick" by Sir Walter Scott: "Not much is to be said about 'The Vision of Don Roderick. . .*.' " That vision thing -- it confounds the best of us.*Baltimalaprop-Of-The-Month: "When we get done knocking down that wall, you'll be able to look across the room, with no obscurities in your way."*From the Thought-I've-Seen-Everything Dept. comes a fellow with a grin and a story.

SO MANY people are now running for president that it makes your head spin. Republicans have candidates you've never heard of. Every time the newspapers print another list of Republican candidates I examine it warily to make sure I'm not on it.Democrats so far have only President Clinton. Amazingly, he is trying hard to keep other Democrats from running.There are other amazing things about Bill Clinton. For instance, he started running for a second term even before he was inaugurated for the first.

Could the American public have a longer attention span than the political partisans and media sharpshooters who skulk about inside the Beltway?With few exceptions, critics found last month's State of the Union address intolerably long, as if the clock gave the most important measure of its value.Mr. Clinton had more to sell, we are told, than a salesman at IKEA. But so what? It's a big country. Somebody has to challenge it.We are told the president was undisciplined, his language "soggy" and "weightless."