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Show OPINION WM. F. BUCKLEY, JR. NATHENTOFF COMMENTARY COMMENTARY Suppose everything they say is correct... If only Bill Clinton were president The people that called irt to participate in And on other matters: We are pledged to the town hall feat u ring President Clinton believe that Clinton was truthful when he and Bob D ole w ere " undecided." Let u s said that Dole voted against Medicare and assume that they accepted as factually true against student loans and against tax cuts. what the two contenders said, to the extent But we are ple dged also t o belie ve that that th e claim s are s ubj e ct to factual candidate D ole is in favor of Medicare and verification. student loans and tax cuts. ·What he didn't The economy. Clinton tells us that 1J jobs explain was why he changed his mind on are up, 2) infla tion is relatively stable, 3 ) these matters. exports have increased, 4 manufacturing jobs We'll have to think about that one. are up, SJ) gross national product is up, 6) the But here is the tough one. We are, by the rules, required to accept everything that deficit has gone down. So what's the matter with that, Mabel? both candidates said. But one of the things On health, Clinton told us that a million Dole said was that Clinton had promised tax more children are receiving benefits than reductions in 1992 when h e ran, but never had previously got them, that insurance is cam e through on them. True, Clinton said now portable from job to job, that he has his tha t h e c ut taxes fo r 15 m i llion people. sight on another 2.2 million to draw in from That's a pretty good start. the uninsured, and that continued Medicare And on foreign policy, Dole didn't really by his sch ed ul e will k e e p o pe n 7000 say anything-did he, Mabel? I forgot . ...But hospitals that oth erwise would be closed. Clinton did say that in the Middle East he is Not bad, the audience acknowledges. doing as m uch as anybody can do, which is Crime? First big downsizing in years. The to m ake the prin c iples m ee t wi th . each result o f C lin t on ' s crime b ill an d an ti- oth er, li s t e n t o each o t her, and let the terrorism bill. blessings of peace speak for them selves. National morale? People are better off than In Bosnia, our diplomatic intervention they were in 1992 ("If you don' t think so, m ean t t h a t people stopped k illing each vote for Dole"). Religion? other, and all we can do is be hopeful about No count ry is more religious than our what comes next. own, a n d nowh ere is t h e right more In Iraq, Saddam Hussein felt our sting scrupulously guaranteed to prac tice one's w h e n h e wen t too far on t he Kurdish religion. quest ion. An d Hait i, as Vice President Al So what does Dole have to offer? Well, the Gore said last week, was one of the most promise of a 15 percent tax cut. We the brilliant diplomatic acts of the century. audience believe he is sincere. We aren't pledged to accept the candidates' On the other hand, we the audience (we evaluations of their own conduct, just the are playing strictly by the rules) believe that facts. On Haiti, Clinton made how manyClinton is sincerely concerned that if we 200?- trade pacts. have tax cuts on that scale, we endanger the We have to be firm, and he will be firm, health of the economy. We wouldn't want and that has already paid off in Japan. Dole that. said that we must stop exporting jobs. And then, the audience reflects, there is We have to credit his sincerity in thinking this problem: Although we believe Senator this. If he became president, he would stop Dole, we have to acknowledge that he exporting jobs. appears to change his own beliefs quite So what do you say Mabel? regularly. - I think that is we accep t everything that He said that the economy was worse off was said, then we vote for Clinton. than at any time in the last hundred years. But then Clinton reminded us that in William F. Buckl ey, fr. is a na tionally February, he had said that the economy was syndicated columnist and author of On the better than at any time in the last 30 years. Right. In czarist Russia, whe n a government decree came came down making the lives of the peasants even harder, they would sigh and say, "If only the czar knew." The czar, however, was not that uninformed. A variation on this le ap of consoling faith is the conviction among Clinton loyalist that if the true, the authentic, Bill Clinton is re-elected, he will indeed be the president from Hope . No longer compelled to compromise, William Jefferson Clinton will rise to the challenge of his middle name rather t ha n pay sile nt tribute to D ick Morris. The leap into faith that we shall yet see the true Clinton was taken , for example, by Gloria Steinem in her answer to a question of her own making during a press conference at the Democratic Convention. it was organized by the usually volcanic congresswom en Maxine Waters, D- Still the students' paper; send letters The University f ournal, h as am ong its goa ls to provide news- campus, local, na tional and international- to SUUan s. _Also, we are designed to provide a forum for all m embers of the campus community to express feelings about topics of interest or concern. T he on ly requirem ent for a letter to the editor is tha t t h e l e tter be responsibl y written; no libelous or m alicious material will be accepted. Letters must be typed and include the a uthor' s n am e a n d ph o n e n umber. The ph one n umbe r will not be prin ted and the fournal will n ot pu blish any anonymous letters. In addition to the letters to the editor, we also offer an 'Access' column for those of yo u who want to expres s mor e lengthy opinions. So take a few moments of your time to tell us what you think. Address such topics of concern as th e upcomin g presiden tial elections, the best way to eat a kumquat, or some event worthy of contemp t or praise on campus. Drop in som etim e with an opinion, and let us know the rest of the campus hasn't disappeared. Because of spa ce limi t ations, w e do reserve the right to edit letters, but we will prin t all letters that are not libelous. Please deliver letters to our offices. (TH 003 ) or SUU P.O. Box 9384. Or e-mail us at journal@suu.edu I CaW. of Nagasaki was a great victory for the peace movement." A reporter turned to the formidable Maxine Waters and asked why she was not attacking Bill Clinton for this baleful welfare law. Gently, Waters answered: "Thank you for reporting that I am not angry. There was a time when people would write a story about those angry feminist women. " But there was n o reaction to be angry. The pools showed that the president would soon be revalidated. The promised land was within reach. "T his is a defining moment for us," Rep. Waters went on, "not to be called angry feminists and to be here with all these cameras." These eminent feminists have not been alone in seein g beyond the president's record to their vision of the Jeffersonian rebirth tha t is to come. Mario Cuomo, in a strident speech at th e Democ ratic Convention, urged us all to save the Bill of Rights and the Supreme Court by re-electing the president. Jesse Jackson preached to the choir at the convention by insisting they keep hope alive by voting for Bill Clinton. A couple of years ago, I asked Rev. Jackso n what he thought of the president. "Hollow," said Jackson. "The man is hollow." At the press conference during the Democratic Convention, there was another defining moment. Dolores Huerta, long an associate of Cesar Chavez- who never had the benefit of Dick Morris' strategic counselspoke: "We were in shock whe n the welfare bill was signed. We're talking about the working poor," Huerta told the n o lon ge r an gry feminists. "These fa rm workers legal resident- have spent their entire lives putting food on American families' tables, and will not now be able to get food stamps. "There is no way to say that what has happened is in any way positive. We must insist that it be changed. Or we must insist that it be changed. Or we m ust have second thoughts about the Democratic Party." By th e year 2000, a good m any Ame rican s ma y have secon d thoughts about both parties. Bu t wh ere is the Norman T h om as to create an education al n ew party? Not to win at first, but to begin to res tore some credible h ope t hat C linton's re -electio n does n ot n ecessarily mean that th is is the president we deserve. Steinman posed what seemed to be a difficult challenge to a presiden t who had just signed the Republican welfare bill that sent a million more children into povert y: "What happened to this man who is the only president in history to know what it's like to grow up poor with a single mother?" Without missing a beat, Gloria Steinem answered herself with a slam dunk: "What happened was an outrageous right wing congress." Newt Gingrich pushed the president. Among the other loyalist at the press conference were renowned feminists Bella Abzug and Eleanor Smeal. they too insisted that although the czar's signature was on that cruel welfare law, he would, after November, rescue th e abandoned children and their parents by crafting humane changes tha t would be expected of the poor lad with a single mother in Arkansas. An account of this tribute to the transcendent president appeared in the October Progressive. The report, "No More Angry Feminists," was by th e magazine's man aging editor, Ruth Conniff, wh o could hardly believe what she heard from these former tributes of the downtrodden. Again, there was Gloria Steinem: " One good thing about this," she t old th e reporters, " is th at it has gotten the press to cover welfare. if we've done n othing bu t bring th e spotlight to this issue ... it will make a n en ormous difference to t h is country." N at Hentoff is a nationally Standing next to Ruth Conniff was ren owned authority on th e First Marc Cooper of The Nation, w h o Amendment and rest of the Bill of noted, "On that theory, the bombing Rights |