OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
October 11, 1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kannan (USPS 605-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuart Fint Hall, Lakeland, Kans. 605-640, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer sessions, and Tuesday and Friday during the holiday period. Second class position $18 for six months, Subscriptions by mail are $12 a year or $24 a year for six months or $3 for a year outside the country. Student subscriptions are $3 a semester paid through the student activity line POSTMASTER. Send
MARK ZIEMAN Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM STEVE CUSICK
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
DON KNOX
Campus Editor
DAVE NAMMAKER
Retail Sales
Manager
MARK MEARS
National Sales
Manager
General Manager and News Adviser
PAUL JESS
No more Watts
LYNNE STARK Campus Sales Manager
No more Watt jokes. No more jokes about his bald head or his fundamentalist beliefs or his mismanagement of the nation's natural resources. He was a lively Secretary of the Interior, but jokes or no, we're glad he's gone. He was a bumbling clod.
JOHN OBERZAN Advertising Adviser
Editorial writers will miss him. Environmentalists will have to find somebody else to hate — let's hope Reagan doesn't put a Watt clone in charge of the Interior Department.
However, the Reagan administration is full of Jim Watts - they just aren't as outspoken.
Watt was just following Reagan's conservative philosophy. He'd propose a controversial policy, and Reagan would approve. Watt opened up environmentally sensitive land to oil and mineral exploration. Reagan approved. Watt opened up large
He was supposed to be the steward of the land. He was supposed to see that it was used wisely. Instead, he handed it over to oil and mineral companies. And Reagan approved.
chunks of seashore to exploration. Reagan approved. Watt proposed selling off federal lands to help offset deficits. Reagan approved. Watt favored scaling down the nation's system of wilderness areas. Reagan approved.
These policies were unpopular, and Watt's offensive manner and repeated gaffes made him even more unpopular. He recognized he had become a political liability for Reagan, so he resigned.
But if you think federal lands are now safe, think again. Watt was just trying to please his boss, and the nation's natural resources won't really be safe until Reagan and his cronies are removed from office.
Unfair budget cutting
The Reagan administration is getting out its budget hatchet and once again, women, children and the elderly are the targets. This time the administration is seeking cuts in the Medicaid program, which helps pay for medical services for low-income individuals who are considered "medically needy."
In other words, the 3.7 million people who would be affected by the change in the rules - including 795,000 dependent children, 839,000 elderly persons and 364,000 persons with physical or mental disabilities - would have to pay a higher percentage of their income for medical bills, leaving them less for other necessities.
Because they are paying so much money for medical bills, their already low incomes usually drop below the federal government's set
The 21.9 million Medicaid recipients usually have higher medical bills than most because of chronic illness, physical and mental disabilities requiring special treatment or age-related illnesses that force them to live in nursing homes.
income level for the program. For example, if the income level is set at $400 a month, the Medicaid recipient uses all income above that level to pay medical bills and the state pays the rest.
Federal officials give three reasons for the proposed changes: They would give the states, who administer and partly finance the program, more flexibility; they would make the program easier to administer; and they would save millions.
But officials admit that the changes, which have not been approved by Congress yet, would save less than $500 million a year. And the changes are at the expense of the same people who have already been hurt by other administration hatchet slashes.
The administration realizes that the 3.7 million people expected to be cut from the program have little political clout and are less able to raise an uproar about the cuts. It is safer politically to slash programs for women, children and the elderly, who represent the highest percentage of America's poor.
A man of great stature
A truly great figure of recent times is gone.
Robert Docking, governor of Kansas for eight years in the 1960s and 1970s, died Saturday. He had suffered from emphysema for many years.
Docking, unlike many political figures, grew in stature during his term in office and afterward. Indeed, the term "a Docking Democrat" has been used for years in the state by politicians who were seeking public support. Few other recent figures in the state or even the nation have earned similar respect from both office-seekers and voters.
Probably the greatest tribute to Docking is his election to four
consecutive two-year terms as governor; he was the only person to do so in state history. The length of office for a Kansas governor was changed to four years, taking effect after Docking's last election. Thus, no future governor will likely face the degree of scrutiny that Docking, a Democrat in a Republican state, faced every other year.
A KU grad who grew up in Lawrence, Docking followed his father, George, as governor. Another Docking is now involved in state government — lieutenant governor Tom Docking, a rising figure in Kansas politics. Tom Docking, however, has some accomplished footsteps to follow, thanks to the fine service of his father.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include class and home tutoring or faculty or staff members of the Kansan also invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
Reagan's record has weak points
WASHINGTON — In 1980, Ronald Reagan wove together a formidable coalition of support behind his promises of less intrusive government, economic prosperity and U.S. strength in world affairs.
In 1984, White House strategists concede, holding that coalition together will not be as easy.
Once his re-election plans are announced, Reagan will have all the powers of incumbency at hand. But instead of campaigning as an outsider against an unpopular president, he will succeed him by gaining Democratic attacks on his record of the past 33 months.
balanced budgets and better times — has presided over the worst unemployment in 40 years, a severe recession and the largest federal budget deficits in history.
That record is not without its vulnerable points.
On the domestic front, Reagan — the candidate who promised
Also, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union are at a new low, war
NORMAN SANDLER United Press International
rages in Central America, Africa and the Middle East, and more voters than ever distrust Reagan's foreign policy.
In 1980, President Carter boasted that he kept the United States out of war. Reagan has dispatched troops to three world trouble spots, including Lebanon where four Marines have died as
White House polls confirm voter anxiety. Reagan's advisers hope the problem is temporary. "Just because some foreign-policy moves are popular, a president can walk away from them," said one. On Reagan's political scorecard:
- Women. The "gender tap" emerged early and has grown in size and significance. In 1980, Reagan was supported by 57 percent of the men and 47 percent of the women who voted. A trend toward greater political involvement by women suggests that this problem will be more serious for the GOP next year. Reagan has not yet found an antidote.
a result of combat-related wounds.
- Hispanics. Reagan polled about 30 percent of the Hispanic vote in 1980 and has used support from Cuban exiles, prosperous Hispanic business executives and Mexican-American veterans as a sign of minority backing. His advisers think he will need 30 percent to 40 percent of the Hispanic vote to carry the key states of Florida, Texas and California.
- Blue-collar workers. Reagan received 41 percent of the union vote in 1980. "At this point," said one administration official, "we're holding our own." But labor leaders are doing all they can to prevent another massive defection in 1984.
- Blacks. The White House has written off the black vote, resigned to accept the rejection of Reagan's domestic policies by a majority of the black community. GOP strategists privately hope Reagan can offset a lack of support from blacks with votes in their favor. But if white voters registration drive in the South succeeds, that "southern strategy" could be radically altered.
- Conservatives. Reagan has tried to extinguish a political brushfire on his right that has been building for the past 2 years and that reached a flash point after his response to the Korean airliner affair. Some conservative leaders threaten to deny Reagan a rich source of financial and organizational help, but Reagan aides believe conservatives will return to the fold when forced to choose between him and a Democrat.
■ Jews. In 1980, Reagan enjoyed some prominent support from the Jewish community and won 42 percent of its votes to Carter's 35 percent, providing further evidence of a perceptible shift of partisan loyalties. Still in the background, however, is ill will about his sale of AWACS radar planes to Saudi Arabia.
Glenn's first gaffe of the campaign
The Ohio Democrat was right, but by failing to put his comment into historical context, he blew what to that point had been a letter-perfect performance before the feminist organization.
WASHINGTON — Sen. John Glenn got the raspberry when he told the National Organization for Women that the Equal Rights Amendment failed in part because its supporters were loafing while its enemies were hustling to kill it.
Congress approved the constitutional amendment and sent it to the state legislatures for ratification in 1972. Within a few years, more than 30 of the 38 states needed for ratification had ratified the ERA, and its adoption as the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, before the bicentennial, appeared assured. The ERA seemed to have the momentum to win well before the seven-year ratification period expired in 1979.
It was about 1976 that Phyllis Schlaffly and other opponents really got organized to fight the amendment. Their arguments — such as claims that adoption of the ERA would outlaw separate public toilets for men and women — seemed so extreme and absurd to the amendment's supporters that for the most part they
ARNOLD SAWISLAK
United Press International
declined to dignify them with rebuttals.
It is during this period — the mid-to-late 1970s — that ERA supporters, in effect, leased on their shovels. They underestimated both the organizing and the propaganda-making ability of their opponents. They overestimated the intelligence and political courage of the legislators in the few remaining
states needed for ERA ratification. That is the time when it could truly be said that ERA supporters were looting.
The nasty truth dawned about 1978 and it took a Herculean effort to get an additional three years to seek ratification. NOW, which was new and weak when the amendment was originally approved by Congress, had been passed by the end of the decade and was at the forefront of the effort to get the last few ratifications.
But it was too late. Opposition to the ERA became one of the rallying points of the resurgent conservatism that led to tax increases, and the election of a Republican president and Senate.
If Glenn had traced the history of the ERA ratification battle and said its backers had loated after the first few years of successes in the states, the NOW delegates —
many of whom were teenagers in 1972 — would have nothing to complain about. But without that perspective, his comment could have been taken to mean that the women at NOW, they were last few years — and to the women at NOW, they were fighting words.
Glenn's gaffe may not have been a political death blow, such as George Romney's famous admission that he had been brainwashed by generals advocating escalation of the U.S. effort in Vietnam. But, in the case of Frank Mankiwicz after McGeorge McGovern had to find a second vice presidential running mate in 1972, the episode certainly "was not a campaign plus."
This was especially true for a Democrat in 1984 who will need to exploit the gender gap if he is to mount a credible campaign against Ronald Reagan.
Reagan nominee faces criticism
Confirmation hearings turn into courtroom-style drama
WASHINGTON — Either President Reagan has nominated a man lacking personal integrity to a high court post or the American Bar Association, a state Supreme Court officer, and a host of others are wrong.
The unusual — some say unprecedented — difference of opinion about the nominee, Sherman Unger, has turned his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings into a tense courtroom-style drama with high stakes and a verdict still uncertain.
"I have tried in my 30 years at the bar to be an honorable, strong, fair
DENIS G. GULINO United Press International
advocate for my clients," a pule, soft-spoken Unger told the committee this past week, his son and daughter sitting behind him.
"I have not tried to cut 'any corners.'" he said.
But, if Unger's enemies are to be believed, that was a massive under-statement.
Unger, as third-ranking executive of the Department of Commerce, directs some of the most sensitive business matters for the government.
His reputation in his present job is being tested along with his qualifications for a federal appeals court. He steps below the Supreme Court.
One of his adversaries in the hearings is a committee member, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, just as his最厉害 defender is the committee's acting chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utsah.
Unger, a Cincinnati lawyer, was told by Metzenbaum at one point, "it's not one thing that bothers me about you. It's everything."
An ABA standing committee on the judiciary, headed by former Transportation Secretary William Coleman, interviewed more than 50 people and found Unger "lacked the personal integrity" for the job.
In other confirmation hearings for high judicial appointments, that would have ended the matter. In this unusual case it was only the judge.
the nomination.
Unger has characterized the
The White House, knowing what the ABA position would be, renewed its solid backing anyway by renominating Unger, a powerful endorsement in the Republican movement that must confirm the nomination.
tions put to Unger were about a private case he defended in Wilmington in the late 1970s.
claims by attorneys from Cincinnati and Wilmington, Del., that he lied and cheated, as the grumblings of former adversaries His friends have testified that such charges are "incredible." Hatch has said few people in Congress could stand up to examination being inflicted on Unger.
Former Attorney General Griffin Bell, Commerce Secretary Malcolm
'I have tried in my 30 years at the bar to be an honorable, strong, fair advocate for my clients . I have made some mistakes.'
As the fourth day of hearings ended Thursday, most of the ques
Sherman Unger nominee for federal appeals court judgeship
His co-counsel in that case, Andrew G. T. Moore II, is now a state Supreme Court justice in Delaware and summoned by a committee subpoena.
Baldridge and former White House Chief Counsel Lloyd Cutler have been among a long list of character witnesses.
Moore accused Unger, described as a former friend, of filing a false affidavit and not withdrawn it, even when reminded it was false.
Moore withdrew from the case and never spoke to Unger again.
He told the committee that the incident "indicates to me a fatal flaw which makes his nomination to the federal judiciary very difficult."
S. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., on Thursday quietly bore in on Unger in a manner typical of a district past he once held in Philadelphia
"It seems to me very difficult if not impossible for you to assert in a litigation matter a position which is contrary to the prior opinion." Sneeter said to Unger.
Unger answered that his client had forced him to file the motion." I was left with the choice, senator. of or being forward with the motion." or going forward with the motion."
The hearing was then called to a halt, to resume after Congress returns from recess Oct. 17.