Show --A t il Zbc Barry Must Pass Test Bigger rrhan Politics ia1r Zribunc ("11t Monday Morning March 19 1990 Section : Page A 44 s Federal Report Offers Stimulus Plan For National Child-Car- e Last week's release of the lengthy federal study "Who Cares for America's Children?" adds impetus to the imperative for a new national policy on child care Utah Sen Orrin Hatch and other aingressmen already have helped develop such a policy but President Bush and majorities in the House and Senate have yet to sign on The study conducted for the US Health and Human Services Department by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences should finally persuade them to put pen to paper The federal report underlines what child-caradvocates have been saying for years: Realistically American families require easier access to quality child-carservices but they're not going to get it without positive government involvement The 19 experts who prepared the document found "substantial scientific evidence" that child-carquality can seof every child the future affect riously and the influence that child has in society While most children of working parents attend unregulated facilities making it difficult to judge how many receive quality care the group figures only 20 percent of current care arrangements are "good or better" The major reason for this dismal showing the report indicates is the infamilies to afford ability of quality services Child care expenses absorb an average of 23 percent of the income of poor families The United States panelists noted has fallen behind other industrialized countries in responding to a social revolution that has resulted in most children having mothers in the labor force Consequently they implied the of American children families and the e e e low-incom- e well-bein- g economy suffers by comparison reducing this country's ability to compete globally -Every American child not only deserves quality care the future vitality of our nation depends on it" John L Palmer chairman of the committee that produced the report and dean of public affairs at Syracuse University told a news conference the other day His group went well beyond proposals now before Congress by recommending the United States: — Immediately devote between $5 billion and $10 billion to child care mostly to help the poor afford better services — Extend Head Start (the federal program for children) to - and — Require employers to give parents of newborns up to a year's unpaid work leave with health benefits and — Establish federal standards for services training and salaries DoddHatchHawkins The proposal the best of the current legislasubsidies and stantive lot on child-cardards would directly appropriate only $175 billion to the cause and would leave standards to the states Separate tax legislation would expand child-carcredits for poor families enroll in Head Start and guarantee just 15 weeks of unpaid work leave for parents of newborns What the federal study does then is give Congress and the states some meaningful principles and specific targets to aim for It demonstrates that the DoddHatchHawkins and leave bills are conservative but practical steps toward the essential goal of giving American children a healthy start in life And that there's no time to lose in starting the process low-incom- pre-scho- e 3- day-car- e e e k Israel's Opportunity Israel's political turmoil has afflicted its own government and made prospects for Middle East peace initatives less encouraging Even worse no one can be sure if developments presage a breakthrough or more tragic paralysis Declining to approve a proposed "plan" for accommodating Palestinian grievances in territories occupied by Israel the Likud coalition with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir at its head forced Israel's latest national crisis Obliged to withdraw from the national unity government Labor Party Cabinet ministers then organized a narrow "no confidence" Knesset (Israeli parliament) vote against a Likud administration the first such government interruption in Israeli history : Ironically although the "peace r plan" which provoked the is frequently atpartnership break-utributed to US Secretary of State James A Baker III its central provisiqns originated with Mr Shamir He first lofted the notion that negotiations Likud-Labo- p iiti now sponsored by the United States and Egypt would lead Israelis and Palestinians to determine how elections could eventually give Palestinians political atitonomy in the occupied territories Mr Shamir Bit Likud and could not agree on the makeup of the Palestinian delegation ! While the Labor Party sided with the Wilted States and Egypt conceding some representation for Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the Palestinian Liberation Organization Likud flatly firmly rejected any such option To Hip point of driving Labor into a corner it 'could not escape setting the government's downfall in motion : Labor is at least willing to take risks for the sake of possible peace but unless it can enlist enough minor party help to form a new Israeli government nci early opportunity will emerge for 11 Aitot her Viewpoint tlA-efor- i f if it r e LI Keep I :t 1 I qtkst I I want" Likud its especially adbeboth concessions amantly oppose cause the approach concedes that Palestinian representatives might "talk to" the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the East Jerusalem issue — Palestinian demands that it be capital of a Palestinian "homeland" — will intrude But it's hardly realistic to keep contending that the PLO does not represent many Palestinians and that the East Jerusalem question is Rather such stonewalling assures no serious splitting of the differences If Labor cannot form a government sotne value may derive from forcing Israeli voters to then decide with ballots their preferred alternative for answering Palestinian grievances The issues are clear and the stakes high A prolonged Palestinian "revolt" in the occupied territories is causing death injuries and damage almost daily mostly among Palestinians but also to Israeli military forces trying to keep order Worldwide impatience with this deadly and needless impasse is rapidly costing Israel sympathy for its Mideast underdog situation If for now Israel's government could speak with one voice on these crucial and fateful matters a genuine -- peace plan" for whomever it is named might miraculously succeed Unfortunately domestic Israeli politics notorious recently for disarray must forge this effective unanimity hard-liner- s lowing to C America tance to Nicaragua this year and next including S45 million to LiSSiSt WIth rtIOCati011 and resettlement of the Contra forces which had been funded by the l 'tilted States To this he added $7ilai mil fur Panama where the pervasive polert: was eompounded by the de astation of the invasion Given the dimension of the problems that is not all that 11111'L ni(iney For Nicaragua this yeal it Aoillil lie elm alent to what has been promised to El Salvador though for Panama it orcs!meibly vould double the $530 million ciarnrked fu! this year The alequacs of the funds is but one question (011fes wiil need to examine In looking a ( fmtra: America congress needs to examine the $121 million iornnutted to Guatemala at a tune jt tf'fl dt'atii squads continue to prey Uli poldical critics Congress also needs to look at ti— million conmutted to Hondora v hers- tn American preoccupation has teot witn (mating military bases rather than addnessing tile tel rible imPoverishment of the needs to make SUTP that peoili And oili-es-ontinued a! to LI Salvador — rit)4 almost $ I I inClion a (l'i' il no way retards peace talks r : i Ohi lic F 11N s Sandy Grady Nil k i go 4PP! s q NI'cc "I 7 -- -i 0 1 Vt 111-- Newspapers WASHINGTON — When Marion Barry came back to town he was greeted with flags and cheers like Napoleon Bonaparte returning from Elbe But there were differences between the DC mayor and the emperor Barry an indicted drug abuser and confessed alcoholic had spent his exile in Florida and South Carolina addiction centers And the — whooping city hoopla of Barry s welcome -workers chants of four more years!" for TV cameras — had the phony air of a rigged political rally army cheered lustiest Notably Barry's -I feel when he said I'm back good about I want to serve this community: myself Ti Barry's power claque those lines translated: "Get ready folks 'cause your main mans ready to go for a fourth term" There's a paradox in Barry's predicament — the private man vs the public man the addict vs the politician — that makes his situation a fascinating riddle What's more importznt to a politician: Saving his life or saving his power? I get the idea Barry a man not lacking hubris is trying to do both simultaneously a recipe for trouble Sure Barry says the right words He "hit bottom- - on the January night lawmen say an FBI sting videotaped him smoking crack in a downtown hotel room Yet he confesses that 48 hours later he was slugging a large glass of son Chris took the cognac when bottle away "That hit me like a ton of bricks" True facing his loyalists this week Barry's voice had the resonance of a man reborn He admitted he'd been hooked on booze and tranquilizers (no mention of cocaine the pivotal substance of his June 4 trial) He blamed "repressed anger and prolonged stress" He said he'd "lost touch with my own pain disappointment anger and hurt" Brave words for Barry the addict But Barry the politician was working too His first move was to give interviews on four Washington TV stations Always of course they asked if he was running for Barry fudged saying "I'm not interested in votes I'm just trying to share my pain my now - Jo '' littl : rti - ---- - '-- - : ' ' -- iiII11$ I Knight-Ridde- r new feeling" Who's talking? The recovering addict or scheming politician? Face it a cynical public and press don't make it easy for a politician to straighten a tangled life Is the guy tricking us? Laying on a Mr Sincere rap to make a comeback? As Courtland Milloy the Washington Post's streetwise columnist asked "Barry talks the talk but can he walk the walk?" Maybe Barry's motives are mixed After 49 days in treatment centers he came roaring back embittered because his friend DC Delegate Walter Fauntroy announced for mayor More galling black ministers and Washington money men deserted Barry "Marion" said a man close to him "sees himself as the young street-tougBarry of 1978 starting from scratch" Nice script But Barry's twin recoveries — this is written by someone who's seen a 12- step program up close a lot of years — are brutally different Sitting around a table with recovering druggies or boozehounds Barry has to surrender his Mr Mayor trappings He has to open up as humbly as any truck driver street bum or housewife His DC celebrityhood won't make that ego deflation easy Ah but as a politician especially one lusting for acclaim and votes Barry must wear the face of control How does he mesh those two images? :- - The new er- - A 19rgOIn p if ‘ 11 -- c: ' -f 1r- '' 141 lb S - t- 4 1 41 'f ' ' i 11'i 1 o 'r a sit ' i:' A - 0 ) v 14' 1:--- 'IIIAA'I'Yk:s V' ' II" cI 4 drmoc ehIcetqa tiL:psri iTrc ! s' I'd Never Think of Reminding You I Said Marxism Wouldn't Work Dallas Morning News DALLAS — My friends tell me that a reis the grettable tendency to say worst flaw in my otherwise nearly flawless character But I'm fighting it which is why am awed by the saintly restraint and gracious forbearance so far demonstrated by my fellow s and With everybody behind the old Iron Curtain suddenly sounding like Barry old Goldwater most art merely smiling modestly Considering the guff they've taken I call class For decades and decthat world-clas- s Marxism and ades anybody who central government planning and the command economy and all that other sophisticated methodology was jeered and ridiculed as a thinker a throwback dinosaur a to the early Pleistocene But those who endured those showers of contumely for so long are not going for payback now As the Politburo turns to entrepreneurship and franchising old starboard-sider- s just blush with pardonable pleasure and say nothing Talk about amazing grace! Lately though I've noticed many of my liberal friends getting more and more fidgety and nervous They keep glancing anxiously over their shoulders starting at sudden noises developing facial tics I asked an old McGovernite chum why and he explained for the other shoe to "We're waiting -drop" he said We know you polecats too well to believe all this nobility and graciousness Sooner or later you're going to stop torturing us with the Mr Nice Guy act and revert to being your usual mean nasty selves" s do seem to be suffering The terribly from all the forbearance Which is why I say — but only in Christian love and taking no pleasure in it: -Hey progressive friends Marxism wasn't the future And it didn't work" The one who has the most right to blow this particular trumpet is the pensioner who was derided by the smart set as a bumbling fool a lamebrained old actor a senile And the sniggers from that quarter peaked a few years ago when the old Irishman described the Soviet system as an "evil empire" s of Instantly he was awash in the the national media the progressive think of the tanks the highbrows and double-dome- s intellectual elite Since then of course the world has discovered that there were just a whole bunch of Poles Czechs Hungarians Romanians Lithuanians Ukrainians Armenians East Germans Latvians Estonians and others including a lot of Great Russians who thoroughly agreed that the empire was evil But even now there is a new revisionist attempt to explain away the rightness of Reaganism Communism would have fallen of its :? Ae: battle-scarre- EINIUMIMEEMEN8 ::71:'?"':'-'- low-rate- d 19th-centur- y port-sider- know-nothin- g 70tiii Jim 41 Wriott A right-winger- s d ' — ' extremist-radical-rightist- tee-hee- Wilbur Mills whose clout and downfall equaled Barry's could be a model Mills (vodka not cocaine was his potion) was blown out of Congress by the Fanne Foxe escapade Mills his recovery just as public as Barry's became a gravel-voiceregular in meetings Nobody ever called him "Mr Chairman'' but plain Wilbur" I hope Barry makes it Not in his bid for reelection but as a human being He could do worse than emulate Wilbur Mills who found there's a reality beyond the phony cheers the limos and TV glare r e po5t61 rates will be -- - own weight say the hindsighted progressives and therefore Old Reagan just wasted all that money he spent on defense particularly the often-ridicule- ICBMs Star Wars defense against Maybe the system would have collapsed maybe not For centuries the Russian people have shown themselves willing to groan and go on under- terrible tyranny Butt only under "successfultyrants Whether the Russians and the various satellite nations would have arisen spoken out and broken away from a communist dictatorship that was on a roll and winning everywhere is a possibility not many gamblers would bet on Ronald Reagan and his big majorities of voters surely didn't bet on it Not only did the 1980s defense buildup protect our hides it also had a catalytic effect on Moscow along the lines of a strategy once !alled "push 'ein 'til they crack' Given the Kremlin's paranoid determination to surpass us in military hardware a deck-sidwould to step up the pace on our push the inefficient Soviet economy to the breaking point and beyond A 1950 Nash can "race" with a Porsche if the Porsche driver is just moseying along But let the Porsche man put the pedal to the metal and the Nash trying to keep up will begin throwing pistons and wheels If the faculty lounge folks thought Star Wars was hilarious the Soviets certainly didn't The Kremlin used every trick and maneuver — from threats of war to sweet talk to concessions — to get it stopped No wonder Back in the 1940s Josef Stalin and company bet the farm on the ballistic missile The standard Soviet policy got horrendously expensive because missiles are e very costly "guns' A working ICBM defense even an erratic one would mean the hundreds of billions of rubles years of sacrifice had failed to buy supremacy Finally the Kremlin admitted that all those guns had not brought the prospect of butter for the people closer On the contrary So not only were Reagan and his supposed dinosaurs right about the evil empire they put in place a defense policy that helped to bring the empire down Which is to say we told you so first-strik- e GOP's Lone Star Shines in Texas Race Washington Post Service — Republicans have just received the best political news since George Bush won the presidency After a series of r elections the setbacks in the 1989 results of the Texas gubernatorial primary give the GOP the inside track in the Lone Star State OM' of the three great prizes in the politics of the '90s In the other two big growth states CaliforMa and Florida Democrats still pose a real threat to Republicans' current control of the N'ic governorship But in Texas the landslide Williams millionaire colorful of Clayton tory in the Republican primary coupled with the inprospect of another month of murderous fighting in the Democratic runoff substantially improves the chances of keeping the governorship in GOP hands when retiring Gov Bill Clements steps down at the end of this year Williams is the surprise star of the early oil millionpolitical season He's a aire who dropped $6 million of his own money into a campaign that won more than 60 percent of the votes againsi Hort- - crcdibft nppo nents In his first race for public office the Aggie turned out to hay e a cornmonman appeal not unlike that of Ronald Reagan A Texas filend reports that earlier this month Williams asked earnestly Is being governor a job?' But he has the knack of making his political naivete sound endearing and his record in business shows a shrewdness that belies the roughneck image Williams cultivated in the campaign With state 'I reasurer Ann Richards and Attorney General Jini Mattox apparently deastermined to continue the saults that featured the first round of the Democratic nomination battle it s unlikely either s ill have much credibility left when the ores are counted ii the pril 10 runoff exit hu 1cen trending Republican for WASHINGTON off-yea- self-mad- full-tim- brass-knuckl- W '4111110-- - David Broder :410 MUMME10101111111 Altfr' many years and with Bush its adopted son in the White House the 90s could see it tip decisively in that direction Except for veteran Sen Lloyd Bentsen almost all the major statewide Democratic officeholders are either trying for new jobs or stepping down this year This turmoil could signal a GOP break through Sen Phil Gramm the heavily faand Clayton vored candidate for Williams provide such strength that some Democrats fear the tide could sweep over lesser statewide offices and legislative contests where GOP victories have been rare Texas is slated to add at least three seats to its delegation in the U S House when reapportionment takes place next year Electing Williams would give the GOP a voice in the drawing of the new map something it did not have a decade ago And that could mean a S‘A'Irig Of many mon than the three new seats Because California and Florida will gain even more seats in the House it s critical to the GOP to retain the g(i rnorship it novi holds in those stales The picture has shifted in both states In California where Gov George Deukmejian is retiring and Son Pete Wilson is unchallenged fin the GoP nomination the phenomenon Of the A1111r has been the surprising surge of Iformer !an Franeisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein With a modest early TV drive she has surged past her Democratic primary opponent Attorney General John Van de Kamp and has taken the lead in the polls over Wilson Wilson and Van de Kamp are so plastic they've been nicknamed the Stepford husbands- But the frighteningly expensive TV battle has barely begun and Feinstein will be given no easier time than Ann Richards was in Texas Women are discovering — as if they didn't already know — that men will not yield the real power positions without a fight In Florida where Gov Bob Martinez's hobbles have had the GOP worried he appears to have steadied a bit with his emphasis on crime and environmental issues Rep Bill Nelson the for the Democratic nomination has stumbled at the start with an ad campaign exploiting a brutal murder case that was so widely criticized that he was forced to issue an apology Another Democrat who has had a hard time getting launched is Ohio Attorney General Anthony Celebrezze designated successor to retiring Gov Richard ('eleste Celebrezhas replaced his original paign team amid a barrage of critical stories while former Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich the Republican contender is campaigning as if he had absorbed every lesson to be learned from his losing Senate race two years ago Overall the Republican prospects look better now than at the start of t e year in several of the 36 states with gubernatorial races from Alaska and Oregon across to Vermont But Democrats still threaten in places like Nebraska Maine and Rhode Island But both parties would probably swap all of these smaller victories for control of 'texas california and Florida And in Texas the first of the Big Three to hold its primary the Republicans have come outt miles ahpa'd Mean--runne- : f r 1 I 1 1 11 it 1!' — I 1 tind From The Los Angeles 'rime President Bush has acted with reasul ing peomptness to lift the embargo on track kat Nicaragua and to establish a 11PA Fund for Democracy for Central America Ills commit ment to democracy is obvious even it ihe ade qtfacy of the fund is not In his comments to the press la:t week Bubh placed the emphasis on assiAance for Nicaragua where results of a free election promise new economic and social argi for Panama struggling to create an open cirtmocracyaf ter the overthrow of the Norni There n a third regime by Americanhetroops did not mention facill urgent priority that tating peace talks between the government of El: Salvador and the rival Farabundo Mart National Liberation Front 1FM IN which is nriw encouraging negotiations 'Darnel Ortega president of Nicaragua hi alloyed fears that he and his Sandinista for': might somehow defy the outcome of the f ree election He assured US Vice President Dan Qdayle that he would hand rivi i power April 23 to Violeta Chamorro leader 1 the opposi ton coalition that won the cliciia bush has prowed S500 INIIIION IN assis ') i 171 testing that courage In fact what the United States Egypt and the Labor Party leaders propose are inclusion in the negotiating delegation of Palestinians with no more than working place addresses in East Jerusalem and the right of Palestinian negotiators to "talk to anyone they : kel - : 1K2 - I sure 11-it- y 1161 1 I: i k le ti t c v:- - I: 1 J f t |