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Show OPINION LAURA ALBISTON RUSSELL KENNEDY COMMENTARY COMMENTARY The presidential messages Clinton's on the right track The National Prayer breakfast: Usually, it's a quiet affair attended by all of the traditi onal p o litical establishment. However, in February, 1994, much was anticipated from its featured speaker, Mother Teresa. No one can argue the credentials of Mother Teresa. She devoted her life to the service of those less fortunate, living on only the bare necessities herself. Needless to say, her remarks were much anticipated at this particular gathering. She opened her comments very expectedly imploring the nation to give to those who stood in need. The subject she moved into next marked a silent, reverent attention. Mother Teresa talked about the very nature of children- how they depend on us for almost everything, how the bond between parents and children is a very delicate, necessary, and sacre.d one. She then avidly discussed the crime statistics in the West, and how the breakdown of this delicate bond is responsible for that. Every person in the room applauded her insight on that statement. She then jumped right into the subject most politicians are still scared to even touch : abortion. Mother Teresa pointed out that abortion is a war in itself against a child, defining abortion as murder by the mother herself. If a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell others not to kilJ? How can we correct these high crime statis tics, Mo ther Tere sa asks these politicians. .Again, almost the entire room jumped to their feet for her insight. That is, all those except four: Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and Tipper Gore. They didn't even applaud this world hero. I believe this epitomizes the current I had pretty good intentions for this column. I was going to give you statistic after statistic about the economic success of the Clinton administration. I was home thinking about it when another story came on the television about the recent killings in Jonesboro, Ark. By now, everyon e has s urely familiarized themselves with the details of Jonesboro. The sad truth, however, is that there really are no details. It is quite simple- kids killing kids. This is the debate we now find ourselves entangled in: where from he.re? When do we as a society decided to do something about this? No one has all the an.s wers. I will be the first to admit the Brady Law wouldn't have prevented the killings in Arkansas even though it has prevented 300,000 felons, fugitives and stalkers from obtaining guns. ! 1 11 tell you what- maybe having a mandatory trigger lock on the gun would. have. These kinds of locks were proposed by Democrats last year only to be shrugged off by Congres-sional Republicans complaining "it's too bureaucratic," or "We are are delving too far into people's private lives." As a response to the killings, the author of the semi-automatic weapon ban, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, proposed a ban on firearm clips that hold 100 or more bullets at a time. It came as no surprise that again such a proposal was attacked by republicans as "missing the point" or "another attempt to rid Americans of their right to keep and bear arms." administration. Above and beyond what personal scandals may or may not come to light, I believe this is what really matters. We are a nation now characterized by high crime, by kids killing kids, and by more common drug use. And yet, our president sends a mixed message to our youth that it is OK to kill-and then looks back at his fellow citizens and asks why the murder rate in the United States still soars. I worry about the children in the world today and what we tell them is and is not acceptable. I worry that they grow up thinking as long as people cannot or are too weak to stand up or speak for themselves, it is OK to treat them with disregard. Yes, or even abort them. And our president sends them the message that it's OK. The president, along with us, has a responsibility to leave the world a better place for our children. How can we do this when we, the people with whom these children have the tender-est of fragile bonds, tell them it's OK to abort a baby because it was "a mistake?" Again our president innocently wonders why drug use is increasing among young people. I would submit to him that it is not OK to put marijuana in your mouth, whether you inhale or not. It's all about messages- the messages we send to the children, who are the future of our country. It will be these messages that will dictate the future of America. Finally, I would ask the president to understand the weight that his messages do carry. And for goodness sake, applaud Mother Teresa. Laura Albiston is a senior political science major from American Fork, Utah. Missing the point? Arn you kidding me? Who the hell needs a gun that can shoot a hundred or more bullets before being reloaded? Let's be honest. If you can't hit a deer in the first SO shots, you probably ought to consider an eye exam. When are we going to say that perhaps guns are the problem? The time has come to support a president who has the future of the children in this country in mind. So what has the President done for future generations of Americans?: He has enacted the single largest investment in health care for children since 1965. The $24 billion Children's Health Care Initiative will provide heal th care coverage for five million children. H e has increased child support collections by more than 50 percent, cracking down hard on deadbeat dads. He has cleaned up to:ric waste sites and redeveloping brownfields. Under President Clinton, more toxic waste dumps have been cleaned up in the past four years than the previous 12 under Reagan and Bush. He has protected families. The Family and Medical Leave Act allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for sick child ren or family members without fear of losing their jobs. It is about children and their future. The fact is that it will take all of us to 1 decide it is the right time. Russell A. Kennedy is a senior social science composite major from Delta, Utah. Is 1998 going to be the year of the Democratic woman1 Now, if they're not careful, Democratic women incumbents who so effectively launched sex harassment missiles six years ago, could be the targets of incoming attacks. Since Kathleen Willey's television testimony, women who support the president's policies have been. trying to find the right words to say abou t her accusations and the White House response to them. It's a particularly djcey subject for the women who swept into the Senate in the now famous Year of the Woman in the wake of Anita Hill's charges against Clarence T homas. The women who won for the Senate that year are up for re-election, and their opponents are asking the Bob Dole question: Where's the outrage? Why are these women not reacting to the alleged harassment of Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey, and the White House attacks on them the way they reacted to Anita Hill and the unidentified accusers of Bob Packwood? One of Barbara Boxer's Republican opponents in California recently staged a press conference to accuse her of inconsistency, of ta king on the accusers of Republicans, but not the Democratic president. The Republican congresswoman running against Washington Sen . Patty Murray has issued a strong statement about the White House shredding women's reputations. And lllinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who won last time with the support of suburban Republican women, seems to stepping gingerly into this fray. On the subject of 110w the president's team treats women accusers, she said on ABC, I think the whole thing is regrettable. Not exactly an endorsement for the president. At the moment, each of these Democratic women is in a tight race, and each needs an enthusiastic turnout of women voters to ensure victory. True, the women's vote has never been about so called women's issues like abortion, where men and women cast their ballots identically on the question. It's economic issues that differentiate the sexes at the polling places, women care more about health care than harassment. But a major event where women seem put at a disadvantage by men COKIE & STEVE ROBERTS COMMENTARY energizes female contributions and volunteers. That's what happened with Anita Hill when women politicians and candidates kept proclaiming that the men just didn't get it when it came to her charges a..'ld the Senate's reaction to them. Some of the women who road the wave of outrage got into the race partly because of the urging of other women angered by the spectacle of an all-male committee staring down a female accuser. The Democratic women who worked on behalf ef Anita Hill, and then on beha.lf of Bob Packwood's accusers insist there's a major difference between those cases and the allegations against the president. Hill would not have been accorded due process, would not have· even been heard by the Senate .had they not intervened, they say, and Packwood was in the legislative branch which was hearing his case. Clinton, on the other hand, is the subject of a court case where a process is going forward and where there's no need or place for them to intervene. We're not wearing hair shirts over this, one member of Congress told us, we know the difference between those cases and this one, and il the press doesn't that's their problem. But these women also know that the public might not understand the difference either and that means there's a political calculation to con sider. And most of them are quick to disassociate themselves from Gforia Steiner's articulation of the differences between the earlier cases and the current ones (that, if the allegations are true, the president still unde rstood that no meant no, so no harassment occurred.) The women on Capitol Hill have also sent what they fear-are unheeded warnings to the White House that the president's minions shou ld hold back on attacking the women accusers. Women voters might not like it either, and that could be a problem for women in politics trying to recapture their year. Each week, one weary Democratic female lawmaker conceded to us, we have to find a new way of coping with this. The concern for the president: When does that coping mean breaking with him? Cokie and Steven Roberts are nationally s ··1dicated columnists. J |