What did Bush say about Taiwan that we haven't heard before?(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Can anybody remember the last time that the news media ripped a politician to shreds for not being ambiguous? For that matter, can anybody remember the last time that a politician said something that wasn't ambiguous?

Before last week, I mean.

There was a time, if memory serves, when one of the highest compliments you could bestow on a politician was, "He says what he means and means what he says." President Harry "The Buck Stops Here" Truman, for example, was admired as much for his no-nonsense candor as for his political philosophy or his legislative initiatives.

But then came Bill Clinton. During eight years of so-called leadership by a president who was able to find vague distinctions of meaning in previously unconfusing words such as "is," "alone" and everybody's favorite, "perjury," the relentless pursuit of ambiguity apparently became a job qualification for commanders in chief.

A president evidently can get away with saying or doing pretty much anything these days _ with the single exception of making straightforward, clear-cut statements about matters of national policy.

So when President Bush said unequivocally in a TV interview last week that the United States would do whatever might be necessary to defend Taiwan against a military attack by China, the media and the president's political opponents went darn near berserk.

CNN was especially beside itself, reacting to the remark with the sort of hysterical urgency and bombastic hyperbole that it usually reserves for natural disasters and court appearances by celebrities facing criminal charges. Which was odd, since Bush's statement simply reiterated a position that he had staked out during last year's presidential campaign _ and since he said what he said in an interview with a competing network.