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Show b f I The Salt Lake Tribune Sandy Grady Saturday October 20, 1984 All Reagan Must Prove He Is More Gipper Than Geezer Knight-Ridde- r Newspapers WASHINGTON Wholl show up, The Gipper or The Geezer? The answer will flicker on 80 million to million television screens Sunday when Ronald Reagan and Fritz Mondale meet in the final debate shootout. Suddenly the question of Reagan's age has become so dominant, both sides agree that his performance on the Kansas City stage can win or lose the election. In this quiz show, pressurized Reagan will be the Mystery Guest. If hes The Gipper assured, alert, reasonably In command of his facts, firing off and anecdotes with a twinkle in his eye the 84 conu ' inay be over. Fritz can call in the dogs, put out the fire and go 100 one-line- rs home. If hes the Geezer the same stumbling, often incoherent Reagan seen m the Louisville debate run to Nov. the home-stretc- h 6 could be a historic thriller. "Youll see a different Reagan this time, says his pal and campaign chairman. Sen. Paul Laxalt. Hell train at a better pace. Reagan will be Reagan. No doubt the geriatric actor will be pumped up for the K.C. theatrics. But even if he finesses Sunday's test, there is a disquiet- have his image-makebeen the hiding genuine Reagan? The question isnt age," says John Sears, a former Reagan consultant. The question is competence. In the days since his Louisville flop, we've heard a zillion alibis. Reagan airily blamed the age difference on Mondales makeup. His campaign director, Ed Rollins, blamed it on taking Mondale too lightly. His buddy, Sen. Laxalt, blamed it on Reagans him with too briefers, who "brutalized many facts. Humbug. By and large, the Reagan whose stuttering, vague performance in Louisville troubled many viewers was the or at least the same Reagan real Reagan often seen in Washington in news sessions and unguarded moments. I suspect thats why the public scooped every news organization on the age factor after the Oct. 7 debate. ing question rs Sure, most reporters covering the debate noted Reagan's stumbles and put in such lines as, "Reagan locked all of his 73 years But nobodys story harped on the age angle; traditional courtesy throws a gauze over presidents. On the Monday after the debate, though, the same comment echoed in diners, barbershops and Laundromats across the land. Gee, Reagan sure looked old last night " The Wall Street Journal and the TV networks explored the age controversy the next day. But people in the street really broke the the aging, unfocused president they story saw on the tube snocked them. In defense of journalists, Reagan s mental lapses, his laziness and his lack of concentration on his job have often been limned in the press. The Reagan of the Louisville debate was no stranger. Two years ago Time magazine did a piece on Reagans unfocused, style called The Detached President. This was a wonderful euphemism, like calling a woman "a detached blonde. Nobody much cared, of course. Everyone shrugged when Reagan made countless bloopers. Once he didnt recognize Samuel Peirce, his only black Cabinet member, calling him Mr. Mayor. This summer he called laid-bac- k Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone "Prime Minister Bush." Humorous, maybe, like Reagan aide Mike Deavers confession that his boss sleeps through Cabinet meetings Reagan can always cover his scrambled facts with an quip. But on the big stuff, he can sometimes be scary I remember when Reagan announced hts MX missile program. Baffled by reporters' questions, he said, "You take over, Cap Weinberger J, and fled It's not trivial it's disturbing when Reagan shows his ignorance on nuclear arms He admitted to senators he didnt know the Soviets were so dependent on d missiles, so his first arms control proposal was turned down. He said in a news conference that nukes can be called back they cant. But that Reagan a man who would rather ride a horse than run the White House was obscured by the appealing figure who seemed crisply in command with a script in his hand. Physically he was a phenomenon, and his image-craftemade sure he was pictured cutting wood, swimming, lifting weights, playing the country boy at Camp land-base- rs The sham worked until the real Reagan showed up under the merciless eye of TV, pressured by a poised, aRgressive'Mondale. Many people watched and exclaimed, Hey, this guy really is old. Ironic that the camera that made Reagan may have trapped him in reality There is no real preceuent for such exposure W hen he was elected to a fourth term in 1944, Franklin Roosevelt's sick, nearly dysfunctional condition was hidden from the country. Dwight Eisenhower was elected to a second term despite a heart attack, but no one, especially the courtly Adlai Stevenson, dared bring up Ikes age (66) or health. Reagan, of course, looks incredibly hale. But for 90 minutes on Sunday, he must prove to a skeptical nation he's more than Gipper Geezer I expect the actor to give the performance of his life. But I wonder what his image team will conceal for the next four years It was Eisenhower who said a couple of times, Nobody over 70 should be in this job On Feb. 6, 1985, Reagan will be 74 David. Russell Baker Bush and Zaccaro Make Bids For Title Who-Is-the-Silli- n. i est New York Times Service NEW YORK It is hard to say who is sillier John Zaccaro saying he wants to sit in on Cabinet meetings if his wife becomes vice president, or George Bush trying to make the public think he and his fam11 ily do a lot of cussing. Zaccaros case is odd because there is no pressure on him as there is on Bush to Tt strain the publics credulity. The one charm of being a vice presidents husband, it seems to me, is the guarantee that after everybody has riffled through your tax returns nobody will ever think of you again. .'1 111 i 1 ' Jt. The one way to guarantee that the whole country will think of you again, despite being married to the vice president, is by insisting on accompanying her to Cabinet meetings. It is widely known in Queens, in old Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too, that the tedium of Cabinet meetings is such that even the Cabinet sometimes dozes off. Ronald Reagans friend and adviser, Michael Deaver, has testified that the president sometimes uses Cabinet meetings to nap; and, though Democrats may sneer that sleep is the presidents one great talent, any man who stayed awake through long stretches of the Republican Convention last summer as he did is no pushover for Morpheus. All America surely knows that Cabinet meetings are so boring that even the Washington press corps has quit trying to tap them for the tiniest news leak. When the pipes are filled with dust, the thirsty go elseto the Pentagon, the State Departwhere ment, the Congress, home to dinner. A vice presidents husband insisting on admittance to the Cabinet meeting must inevitably become a figure of public ridicule, in a class with the hick senator of a few years back who, when Capitol reporters voted him the dumbest man in Congress, called a press conference to deny that he was the dumbest man in Congress. As for Vice President Bushs effort to portray himself as a regular guy with a vocabulary, despite the salty, locker-rooobvious implausibility of his case, there is at least some political logic in his trying to make it. He has long been cursed by the epithet "preppy, with all its comical suggestions of m a man who sleeps in pajamas with a button-dow- n collar and an alligator stitched over the handkerchief pocket. This is imagery that speaks of the Ivy rooms League, elm trees and where men still mourn the days when the bank charged 5 percent interest to borrowers and paid 2 Vt percent to depositors. This was the old conservative Republican Party despised by the cactus radicals who now own the party and will probably dictate the successor to President Reagan. We are talking about the kind of people who are not too prissy to cuss, if only because they are shrewd enough to know that they need a lot of voters who do. For the same reason, they have established a new pantheon of Republican heroes composed of John F. Kennedy, Harry S Truman and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Conspicuously omitted is one of the greatest of the modern age, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Note that Eisenhower was a Republican, but a Republican who coined the phrase modern Republicanism. The meaning of modem Republicanism was aways vague, but the cactus radicals heard nasty overtones of liberal Republicanism and Eastern Republicanism in it. For the present, Eisenhower is purged. Bush, long under suspicion of practicing would naturally like to shed the accursed preppy lavote-gette- The Public Forum bel. So we suddenly overhear him on the waterfront talking to longshoremen in locker-roometaphor. This comes only a few days after Mrs. Bush refers to Geraldine Ferraro with a word she hesitates to speak outright but that she says "rhymes with rich. g issue Suddenly we have a in the making. On television we see the vice president challenged to deny that In speaking to the longshoremen he used a word that rhymes with mass. News! Bush refuses to m good-breedin- deny it! Does anybody think he's a namby-pamb- y afraid to talk vulgar? Around the Bush house, he says, youre apt to hear regular-gulocker-rootalk any time. When this television "bite is over, I have the impression he is trying to persuade us to visualize the Bush family sitting around the dinner table cussing up a storm. I try to visualize the Bush family at dinner. All I can hear is, Golly! and Gee whiz! and now and then a rousing chorus of Boola Boola. Sorry, George. y, Tribune Readers Opinions Two You Missed I was very pleased to read your recent article on the Guadalupe Centers La More-n- a cafe. All of the people you highlighted in your article have certainly contributed to making this fine restaurant the huge success that it is today. However, having been acquainted with the center and restaurant since its inception, I was really disappointed that I did not see the names of Phil and Vera Salazar, as two of the people who were responsible for much of the success and popularity of the La Mo-ren- a. Their cordial manner and open arms welcome to all became one of the major factors in the building of a fine reputation for the restaurant. In my opinion, Phil and Veras personalities were a major factor in creating the ambience that is commonly associated with the La Morena. Phil and Vera are no longer employed at the Guadalupe Center, but their outstanding contributions will be remembered for a long time by many of us who have watched the center grow. CATHERINE HOSKINS Maligned Again Voila! Teachers get it in the tush again! The cover of Newsweek (Sept. 24) has portrayed us as the dunces of schools. Of course the article in the magazine blames our duncitity on our training in the education departments of universities. The authors of the article call it the most n in America, and scorned place the blame for our stupidity on teacher training that is perhaps the biggest running joke in higher education. But for my money the biggest running jokes in the educational family are the administrators at whatever level of the school system. All of them with their secretaries offices where they can and close their door and at least have some privacy and also have too much time to conjure up project after project for shaping up administrative ttachers for diddley-cra- p tasks that make them look good. Each day brings new charts and statisheaven that tics from the administrative can be used to show how teachers are not doing the job administrators have told their boards of education teachers should be doing. They load teachers up with more stumore, dents, more days, more more, more and more each year. If a teacher fails, shehe fails at the local level and that comes as a result of the often untenable situation in which shehe is placed by the local administration. Nobody can prepare a person for the local administrative idiosyncrasies that are added to the job teachers are prepared for teaching. If one could concentrate on the quasi-professio- Hey, man, how about a little 'X post-fet- al concern? i myriad of problems created as a result of being in charge of a classroom of students, instead of doing all the outside the classroom support tasks and changes for making administrators look good maybe just maybe, students could be helped to improve. Administrators spend hours and hours preparing statistics upon statistics to prove their administrative success, while the individual student and teacher are lost in the statistics. One teacher of the year from each school does not a happy teacher corp make. Most teachers are teachers of the year just for surviving the maze set up for the exaltation of administrators. LOUISE HESS An Agreeable Chap Im disappointed, too, and angered that someone like Nancy Mattet Elbert did not receive more notoriety in The Tribunes Sept. 5 report of President Reagans visit to Forum Rules Public Forum letters must be submitted exclusively to Tbe Tribune and bear writers full name, signature and address. Names must be printed on political letters but may be withheld fdr good reasons on others. Writers are limited to one letter every 10 days. Preference will be given to short, typewritten (double spaced) letters permitting use of the writers true name. All letters are subject to condensation. Mail to tbe Public Forum, The Salt Lake Tribune, Post 8fi7Salt Lake City. UT 8411 0. Salt Lake City. After all, whats the fun of a protest without publicity? I guess Nancy has forgotten that our country, though forewarned of the coming Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, for the most part sat on its hands thinking that it couldnt or wouldnt be done. I agree with Nancy, also, that we shouldn't have so many impoverished people in this country and that we should spend the money we give to other nations on our poor. However, we should also see that those poor folks work for the money we give them, otherwise where is the incentive to ever go to work? Perhaps I should further concur with Nancy concerning the Grenada invasion we should sit and let the communists take over wherever they wish. President Kennedy, though, wouldnt let the Soviets threaten us with their Cuban-base- d missiles, why should Reagan allow their aggression in Grenada? Now as for the huge weapons expenditures well, I guess I should go along with Nancy again. We should just stop all that, and tell the . Soviets that we have stopped now so, You stop, too, okay? Please? Im sure that Nancy would agree that the Soviets would stop everything and destroy all their nukes, if we did. T. POTTER Sandy Wheres Free Enterprise? What happened to free enterprise? Carol Dunlaps response concerning the Public Service Commissions possible future decision on Mountain Bell phone rates centered on the commissions foresight to think ahead and consider how future telecommunications would impact the states future growth. I propose the commissions foresight should be how the state's future growth will impact the future telecommunication market. Let the new market place pay for the growth as it is developed and not todays resident ratepayer Rate increases will always be justified and understood by the public but not when they are presented in this manner. Maybe the public relations staff should explain to us and G T. Harrison our misconception of the PSC charter and reason for existence. JOHN J VANDENHOEK The Way It Was Here are briefs from The Salt Lake Tribune of 100. 50 and 25 years ago. October 20, 1884 Everything is running nicely at the Alice Mine. No new developments are reported, but all the ore faces and bodies of ore present their customary fine appearance. In all the upper levels of the Alice work is pushed ahead in a satisfactory manner, and about eighty pounds of ore are hoisted daily October 20, 1934 Favored to win the colorful grid encounter with BYU Saturday afternoon in the Ogden stadium, Colorado universitys Silver and Gold squad went through its final drill indoors Friday. With both Utah and the Aggies away from home, the game is the center of the college gridiron interest ir Utah this week, and hundreds of fans from a, sections of the state are expected to be on hand October 20, 1959 The Utah State Highway Department opened bids Tuesday on $1.752,OUO worth of highway construction, involving three projects Low bids cut under estimated costs, enough to put another job under contract. '1 i |