"The Sixth Day,"

the new Schwarzenegger movie, has been slammed by critics as a mindless,

shoot 'em up sci fi, which is exactly why I enjoyed it so much, I suppose.

I like mindless shoot 'em up

sci fis. I also like cerebral, contemplative sci fis, but that's another

story.

In "Sixth Day," humans

have developed a technology that is referred to in the movie as cloning,

but it's not exactly cloning. Scientists, clandestinely and illegally,

are growing human "blanks" bodies with no soul. When someone

dies (someone the villains want to keep alive), they take his or her DNA

and imprint it onto the blank body/template, et voila!

It takes about two hours to

bring the dead person back to life.

Now you're wondering how I'm

going to turn this musing about a comic-book movie into political commentary.

OK, here it is.

Dubya hasn't even taken the

oath of office yet, and already dozens of publicity hounds are courting

the cameras in attempts to imprint him with their agendas as if he were

some kind of blank clone template.

Clever, huh?

Jesse Jackson has handed Bush

his first fried-if-you-do and fried-if-you-don't scenario.

Although he vowed on election

night Dec. 13 to be a thorn in the administration's side, Jackson was

on TV last week extending an "olive branch" and explaining with

great professorial detachment what the new president "must do"

to prove himself.

He must appoint a presidential

commission to "find out what happened in Florida."

Way to go, Jesse. That ought

to guarantee you a few hours of prime time.

But, of course, you know that

it's not the president's job to find out what happened in Florida it's

Florida's job. And Bush will be forced to turn you down, giving you the

perfect opportunity to leap from the belly of the Trojan horse you've

presented him with and begin beating your breast in front of the cameras

and asking why the president has gone back on his promise to bring people

together.

Along with Jackson, all the

TV talking heads are putting forth agendas that, they opine, Bush must

adopt if he is to be successful.

Democratic luminaries also

are occupying the little screen of late, using the same concerned tone

and pontificating about what Bush "must do" immediately if he

is to accomplish a bipartisan working relationship with their side.

What it all boils down to is

that he must give them everything they want and ask for nothing, and failure

to do so will result in a chorus of wailing the likes of which we haven't

seen since... well, since last week.

What the heck, I'll toss in

my two cents' worth as well.

Here's what Bush must do if

he is to obtain and maintain the high ground. He must do what he thinks

is right, keeping in mind the promises that he has made.

Either he is capable of bringing

the country together, or he's not. And that clearly remains to be seen.

But I'll guarantee you that

he's not going to do it by bending to kiss all the rings of all the self-appointed

potentates who have contributed so much to the division that now exists.

That includes people on both

sides of the aisle.

As I watched his acceptance

speech, I enjoyed the symbolism as much as anyone. But if Bush thinks

that he's going to encounter the same cooperative spirit in Washington

that he has in Austin, I'm afraid we're in for a long four years.

The difficulty he faces is

that he will have to compromise with people who are laying traps for him

in every encounter.

He will have to develop programs

that everyone can agree upon, and then explain them so well that no one

can get away with mischaracterizing them.

He will sometimes have to be

tough and use a ramrod on Congress, and he will sometimes have to be conciliatory.

In short, he'll have to decide

which hills are important enough to die on, and nobody will be able to

make those decisions for him.

The TV pundits have said over

and over that Bush must avoid Tom Delay, the combative conservative Republican

representative from Texas.

But it seems to me that in

order to reach across to both sides of the aisle, you have to deal with

the centrists and the extremists on both sides.

You have to talk to the Tom

Delays and the Tom Daschles alike. You have to fight them when you must

and you have to court them when you can.

Bush's job is to develop an

agenda that will be acceptable to the people and move it along.

To do that, he will have to

listen to everyone, then make his own decisions, and then communicate

well enough to sell it.

Rather than be imprinted with

an agenda, he will have to imprint one on the Washington scene, without

being too partisan.

Should be a piece of cake.