Deja Vu All Over Again

Howard Fineman, March 18, 1991:

If you are a Democrat with a compulsion to run for president, this would be a good time to find a detox program for the ambition-addicted. President Bush's popularity is at Founding Father levels. The Republicans have a cassette full of your doleful prewar words about Desert Storm, ready for media man Roger Ailes to pin to your hide. Meanwhile, Bush's Warthogs -- Rep. Newt Gingrich and Sen. Phil Gramm -- are softening you up from the air, impugning your toughness if not your patriotism. Even if you voted for the war, as did Sens. Al Gore and Charles Robb, you still have to answer for your party, which opposed it almost en masse. "They're fair game," says Ailes.