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Show y ' fr 'tl "1 y I I abc Halt akf (Tribune Saturday Morning Section July 7, 1984 Pae A 10 Exclusionary Rule Tuning Essential to Its Survival Contrary to what some newspateleviper headlines, sions reports and even legal experts excluare telling you, the sionary rule is in no immediate danger from the U.S. Supreme Court. It may have been strengthened instead when the court majority ruled Thursday that some evidence obtained with defective search warrants can be used in the prosecution of criminal trials. The controversial rule was promulgated by the court in 1914 and has done noble service protecting individual rights by deterring police misconduct through excluding illegally obtained evidence from subsequent trials. Many, however, strongly feel it has performed too nobly and actually thwarted justice by allowing the guilty to go free on mere technicaliskim-the-ne- ties. The rule has long been under atlaw and order advotack by Ronald like cates Reagan who, as president, stepped up efforts to curb its application. In light of this formidable opposition, even the most narrow restriction is easily seen by some avid defenders of the rule as dilution or erosion or even, as Associate Justice William J. Brennan said in his dissenting opinion, a grave so-call-ed mistake. We see it as none of the above. A modest retreat to a stronger po- sition is not a setback. And making reasonable concessions on lesser points in order to bolster a fundamental bulwark of freedom is good tactics though it is unlikely that the six justices favoring the modification had that in mind. The plain fact is that the exclusionary rule faces increasing danger d of curbing by a legisladominated tive branch by forces lamented its also have which long Four excesses. years ago, for leged Joint Utah the Judiciary example, Committee considered proposals reportedly aimed at legislating the rule out of existence in Utah courts ex- ham-hande- cept in cases of flagrant violations of a defendants rights. Similar sentiment exists in Congress and other state legislatures. It was our position in 1980 and it is our position today that the exclusionary rule is a judicial remedy essential to enforcing the Fourth Amendments prohibition against illegal search and seizure. Legislators should not tinker with it. It is difficult to deny, however, that the rule has sometimes been applied in ways that did society a disservice. Although relatively rare, the few excesses have fueled demand that the rule be jettisoned, by legislative means if courts wont comply. Some judicial modification is indeed in order. It must be accomplished soon to forestall determined attempts to apply statutory quick fixes that are potentially far more threatening to traditional rights. Tuesdays ruling is such a step. Our reflex anxiety, which surges whenever the rule is questioned, was assuaged on reading more detailed reports of Associate Justice Byron R. Whites majority opinion. And Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmuns concurring opinion which called the ruling provisional, went on to assert if it should emerge from experience that, contrary to our expectations, the good-fait- h exception to the exclusionary rule (in Thursdays decision) results in a material change in police compliance with the Fourth Amendment, we shall have to reconsider what we have undertaken here. No, the hallowed safeguards are not breached nor has the nations highest court invited reduced police respect for them. Instead of dilution g and erosion, there is judicious adand timely, dispassionate justment that will keep the hounds of reactionary retribution at bay. The exclusionary rule is undergoing midcourse corrections, not destruction. fine-tunin- court-orchestrat- ed Lebanons Tortured Progress Lebanons government of national unity has a right to be elated. Nonetheless, predictions of quick and complete recovery, based on initial reestablishmnent of some control by the Lebanese army in Beirut, would be premature. As the contending militia forces stepped back from the confrontation line in Beirut, a reconstructed national army once more reasserted its police powers over .hat divided and battered city. It was a significant, yet tentative and fragile step. Since Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the quest, internationally as well as domestically, has been for arrangement and agreements which could restore stable government to that Mideast country. A rampant factionalism, in addition to continuing occupation by Syrian, Israeli and some Palestinian groups, complicated the already perilous task. Finally, however, compromises and trade-off- s between the local political and religious elements, for- war-swe- pt malized through a presidential cabinet made up of leaders from the most prominent and best armed of those elements, is reducing the level of chaos. But only slightly. As militia, Christian and Moslem, receded from neighborhoods now patrolled by the Lebanese army, their spokesmen vowed never to completely capitulate. Although militia weapons were supposed to be placed in government warehouses, few expect total, wholesale relinquishment. Moreover, the armys strength is limited to Beirut. Elsewhere, the Israelis, Syrians, the militias and a bewildering array of armed freebooters still hold tight to sections of Lebanon. It's reassuring that, left mostly to themselves, the Lebanese have been able to stem the civil war and anarchy which seemed poised to devour their country. They may be, as Prime Minister Rashid Karami proudly proclaimed, on the road to salvation. The road, however, remains sown with pitfalls and land mines. Flora Lewis Let the Best Person, Not Token, Win New York Times Service PARIS Now that the United States has celebrated another birthday, its a moment to think of what it means to be a year older. One definite change that has come in this political season is the conventional assumption about qualifications for the presidency. It used to be said that any American boy could grow up to be president, but it used really to mean any white boy, in fact any white protestant boy, indeed any white Protestant boy who didnt come from the South. Whatever else has come in the aftermath of the primaries, Walter Mondale has broken some more barriers in his approach to se- lecting a running mate. For it cannot be forgotten that a vice president is not just the bottom half of a ticket. He or she if elected is the designated successor to the White House. The response to Mondales rather awkward and demonstrative series of interviews for the slot has created a new awareness that old limits have been transcended. America has grown up enough to be able to consider a woman, a black, perhaps a member of any of the minorities besides WASPs as a possibility, without automatic shock. That is solid achievement. It is a gain for all Americans, not just because it offers a new source of pride' for special groups but because it enlarges the resource of talent on which the country can expect to draw leadership. Fine. But it is not a reason for choosing a specific person. National office cannot be subjected to a quota system. Two people are to be elected to head the government, not two sexes or two colors. John F. Kennedy didn't become the first president because it was time for the Catholics to have a turn. Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter weren't elected because they were Southerners. What used to be considered handicaps were overcome by a maturing sense that equal opportunity meant dropping categorical blocks, not just shifting them. In the same sense, I would not like to see Mondale offer a black for vice president. tion-building is the foundation of American politics, but only an individual can sit in the White House, or stand next in line. So the choice should be an individual able to run on personal qualifications and experience. First Mondale, then the delegates to the Democratic Convention, then the voters will judge. It may be that there isnt yet one available from the groups previously barred by old taboos from preparing for the contest. If that is so. it should not be a cause for resentment or disappointment but an invigorating challenge for the new players. There will be another presidential election in 1988, and another four years after that, and the news now is that the way has been opened for aspirants who never thought theyd have a chance. New York's Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, endorsed by the National Organization for Women, said honestly, "I thank NOW for making dreams that once seemed impossible a Coali- reality for me. That is the big first step. The American political process doesn't impose the kind of filter on emerging leaders that parliamentary systems do. Who would have thought that the first female government leader in Anglo-Saxo- n countries would be an English Tory? But Margaret Thatcher didnt win power or the leadership of her party as a woman, she won it as a politician who had shown mettle and skill in open competition. In the United States, it is possible for virtual unknowns to be catapulted into the national race without exercising on a long climb up the political ladder. Often, particularly when they run for vice president, they are catapulted right out again and quickly forgotten. That isnt a credit to the method of selection. The best candidate to run with Mondale will be the one who best illustrates that he or she is able and eager to form a government team with people of proven competence at the top, regardless of whom they represent. There is no apprenticeship for the presidency, but there is a need for substantive background. Mondale has said, Never again will a nominee make headlines by considering a woman. Next time headlines will be made only if a woman is not considered. That should be correct. The old saying must now be amended to: Any American can grow up to be president. Of course, not all do. The breakthrough should be taken not as a matter of right to the exclusion of others, but as an obligation to broaden possibilities and an encouragement to enter the race and develop aptitudes. Let the best person win, not the best man or woman or black. That, not tokenism, is the approach that means real advance for American society. William F. Buckley Jr. Ladies and Politics in Power Put Mondale in a Pickle Universial Press Syndicate Permit me, first, dentials on the matter cre- of women and politics in power. If I had been an Englishman, seated in the House of Commons in 1975, I'd have voted for Margaret Thatcher over Edward Heath for party leader, from which post she graduated to prime minister. But I have a complaint against the ladies. And I pause to remind myself that I have been upbraided in the past by Clare Boothe Luce for using the word ladies. When is it permissible to use the word? I asked. When, if you were soeaking about men, you would use the word 'gentlemen. Well, I find the word appropriate in referring to the vociferous ladies who assembled under the banner of the National Organization for Women to demand, no less, that the candidate selected by Walter Mondale should be a woman. It isn't that Mr. Mondale hasnt invited the pickle he is now in. He has been interviewing everybody except maybe Gore Vidal for the position, and inevitably, pressure groups form around prospective candidates. When prospective candidates means anybody who is female, the pressure group is necessarily large. What roils in this whole exercise is the competitive dimension. Purely at the level of station, there are four prominent women politicians in America. Three of them are Republicans, if you count a Supreme Court justice as a politician. The fourth is the governor of Kentucky, whose name is not generally mentioned as a contender in a league with, say, the mayor of San Francisco. Now the Democratic Party has placed great emphasis, particularly in recent times, on the qualifying process for high office. That is the reason states have moved so heavily in the plebiscitary direction, and that, indeed, is the basis of the objection to tradition of some states, the winner-take-awhere the candidate with 51 percent of the votes gets 100 percent of the delegates. ll But the same groups (they are from the left wing of the party) that place so much emphasis on the plebiscitarian ideal suddenly reverse themselves and ask the Democrats to name a woman notwithstanding that no women even entered the Democratic primaries this year. Not since Shirley Chisholm ran for president 12 years ago has a woman run for president, so far as I am aware, and Miss Chisholms race was on the order of Norman Mailers race for mayor of New York, i.e., one part lark. But the question is serious: If Geraldine Ferraro or Dianne Feinstein are to be considered as candidates for president or vice president, why do they not go and strut their stuff in New Hampshire, with the boys? My point is not to be confused with the assertion that the means we have of designating presidential candidates are Far from believing that, I am confident that with a very small flashlight in 24 hours I could come up with a dozen men better qualn ified to be president than a who have served in the White House. But the democratic process is the process to which we are institutionally committed, and although we are all aware that women were not even allowed the vote until d years ago, it can't seriously be suggested that as an act of penance for past slights, we confer the vice presidency and perhaps the presidency on someone merely because she is a woman who has qualified in a relatively minor political role. God-give- n. half-doze- It is really quite silly for Geraldine Ferraro to say that she is perfectly well quali- By Steve Neal Chicago Tribune A politician is only as good as his staff And their peers often judge politicians by the kind of folks they have working for them When Richard Nixon was president, he surrounded himself with so many button-dow- n wimps that he used to snort. ' Don't sav I finish talking " With that kind of until yes staff support, it's not surprising that nobody told Nixon the Watergate cover-u- p wasn't a very good idea. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a wealthy upstate New York lawyer who had lost bids for the vice presidency and the U.S. Senate, was transformed into the legendary FDR by the hard work and political skills of James A. Farley and Louis Howe. Harry Truman pulled off history's most remarkable political comeback in 1948 thanks in no small part to the game plan drawn by his fellow Missourian, Clark Clifford. John F. Kennedy became the youngest I Four years ago, Ronald Reagan came close to throwing away the election with a series of political blunders in the late summer. Sounding like one of the jurors at the Scopes monkey trial, Reagan said he didn't know if he believed in evolution, he reopened the old controversies of the 1980s by declaring that America s intervention in Vietnam had been a "noble cause," and he almost undid a decade of reconciliation with the People's Republic of China by pledging his fealty to the heirs of Chiang Reagan's blunders abruptly stopped a few weeks later when Stu Spencer, his original political mentor, joined the Republican nominee's traveling entourage. Spencer was known as one of the few persons able to tell Reagan what he was doing wrong and get results. And he did. One of the reasons Walter Mondale will be nominated later this month as the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee is that he. Kai-she- M v too. has a tough, streetwise political counselor in John R. Reilly. 56, a senior partner in the Washington, D.C., office of the Chicago law firm of Winston & Strawn. Reilly used to work in Chicago as an assistant U.S. attorney and as Midwestern representative of the Council of State Governments, and he was former Mayor Jane Byrne's lobbyist in Washington. He has been politically active since he worked in JFK's 1960 campaign. Reilly later was a top aide in Robert F. Kennedy s Justice Department and served as a Federal Trade Commissioner. What I learned from Bobby Kennedy, Reilly recently told Newsweek's Margaret Warner, "was that basic values mean a helluva lot in politics. The way we fight for people who've been held down says every" thing about what kind of society we are On returning to private law practice, Reilly was able to devote more time to polisentics. When Mondale, then a ator from Minnesota, became the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1976, Reilly became one of his top advisers. A ' V little-know- n Reilly and Mondale met in a Miami bar working for rival presidential candidates. Mondale was backing his political mentor, Hubert Humphrey, while Reilly was working for JFK. Although they argued, the two wound up liking one another. in 1960 while wit fied to serve as president of the United States. Sc am I. The point being missed is that qualification as generally understood means competitive political-eminence- . George Bush was the natural selection for Ronald Reagan because the primaries had proved him the second most popular Republican. His complement, in San Francisco, is Gary Hart. So why don't they give it to him? Besides, if they don't, he might change his name to Gary Hartbroken. Streetwise Political Adviser Keeps Mondale on Course man ever elected to the presidency with the help of his brother Robert, who was his campaign manager, and wily political operatives Larry 0 Brien and Kenneth O'Donnell. i ni rmrr lost New Hampshire, it was Reilly who urged Mondale to play rough against Gary Hart. Both strategies worked. In a rehearsal debate for hisTationally televised match against GOP vice presidential nominee Robert Dole, Mondale sparred against one of his staff lawyers. With characteristic bluntness, Reilly told Mondale that the sparring partner had won. But Mondale proved to be a quick learner and outpointed Dole in the debate, which some observers think may have tilted the election to the Democrats. Reilly also was the guy who told Mondale that his campaign's acceptance of funding from union political action committees had turned into a liability under attacks from Hart. Mondale repaid the money. At a low point in Hart's campaign, the Colorado senator's press secretary, Kathy Bushkin, confided that one of their problems was that we don't have a John Reilly. Reilly is respected by political correspondents for his intelligence, candor and sense of humor. But he alro knows when it's better not to talk. During Mondale's 1984 campaign. Reilly has been his key strategist. When Mondale began the process of choosing a running-mate- , Reilly drew up the list of prospective candidates. Last fall, it was Reilly who got Mondale to force John Glenn to veer too far to the political right by attacking him as a Rigan impersonator. And alter Mondale When reporters attempted last fall to reach Reilly to ask him about Chicago Democratic Chairman Edward Vrdolyak s secret meeting with top Reagan aides and Vrdo-lyak- 's offer to covertly help the president's whom by supporting Mondale Reagan's aides named as their preferred op- ponent Reilly left word that he was in "the barn and unavailable for comment i V i , f |
