The same thing might now happen to George Bush, Steeper warned, and it was imperative that the president not bank too heavily on his foreign policy successes in the campaign ahead. The economy was hurting a wide range of people and becoming preeminent in their minds. Bob Teeter warned Bush of much the same thing. But the president was more confident, loath to move against his top people -- his economists -- and still content to believe their rosier economic forecasts. Thus, a critical election year would begin with Americans bothered by the state of the economy and yearning for benefits from the end of the Cold War, and with George Bush under assault from a Democratic challenger for paying too much attention to foreign policy and too little to domestic policy. All of this would take place as the Balkan state of Yugoslavia began to unravel with horrendous human consequences.

Copyright © 2001 by The Amateurs, Inc.