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Thursday. October 16, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Crumbling trust
U. S. District Judge Harry E. Claiborne last week received the dubious distinction of becoming the fifth federal official in U.S. history to be removed from office through impeachment.
The federal judge's duty on the bench was, among other things, to mete out punishment for those found guilty of federal crimes. That he himself somehow felt he was above the law was a slap in the face to all of those whose job it is to keep justice.
On Oct. 9, a solemn Senate voted the chief U.S. district judge for Nevada guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors." He was convicted of the willful tax violations for which he was found guilty by a federal court jury in 1984. He was also found guilty of betraying the judiciary and the nation, an offense far worse than filching the IRS out of $106,000.
Persons with the power to punish criminal acts should keep their personal affairs, including their tax records, clean. To do otherwise is high hypocrisy. Those felons sitting in the slammer courtesy of Claiborne must be feeling pretty smug; old Harry finally got his.
We as a nation want to believe in those we elect to rule us. We want to believe that the United States is still the greatest nation on the earth. Great not only in military and economic strength, but in the strength of the integrity and innate goodness of the system and its representatives. We want to believe that lying and cheating is beneath us.
It is a disease that has left the nation with a case of extreme cynicism and distrust of its own leaders.
On a larger scale, U.S. citizens are tired of not being able to trust authority. Current events, however, have only fed this mistrust. We have a president whose credibility level has dipped to a depth not seen since Richard M. Nixon bid us adieu in 1974. Government officials have been feeding the press phony information, and now a judge has been impeached for withholding income taxes.
Our leaders urge us to trust them. But that is becoming increasingly hard to do. If this downward spiral does not reverse itself, the one-dollar bill may soon be changed from saying "In God We Trust" to "In Nobody We Trust."
Foolish lies and actions
As if the infamous Libya disinformation plot wasn't enough, the Oct. 5 incident in which a military supply cargo plane was shot down in Nicaragua has provided additional evidence that our government routinely tells us outright lies.
Eugene Hasentus, the lone survivor of the plane and now a prisoner of the Sandinista government, said he was part of a Central Intelligence Agency effort to aid the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras. The CIA denied any knowledge of the operation, and suggested that Hasenfus' captors had forced him to claim a CIA connection.
Almost as disturbing as the CIA's lies is President Reagan's approval of mercenary activity in Nicaragua by private U.S. citizens.
But sources with close CIA contacts told the New York Times on Oct. 13 that the man Hasenfus identified as his supervisor does in fact carry out projects which are indirectly financed by the CIA.
Has Reagan ever heard of
this country's neutrality laws, enacted almost two centuries ago to prohibit citizens from conducting their own military attacks on other countries? These laws apply to attacks on Nicaragua as well as any other country.
Although the 1984 ban on aid to the contras will be lifted soon if Congress, as expected, gives final approval to the oft-debated $100 million assistance package, any CIA involvement until then will remain illegal.
But then, illegality is nothing new to the administration's Nicaragua policy. In 1985, when the World Court condemned U.S. efforts to topple the Sandinista government, Reagan rejected the court's authority.
The CIA has proved it doesn't deserve to have any authority returned to it to intervene in Nicaragua.
Congress should reconsider supporting the contras at all. The United States is earning a reputation as a lawless country with regard to Central America, Covert CIA involvement is one reason why.
The zip, zap, flip flap
Television is weaker as an advertising medium because so many viewers are "zappers," "zippers" and "flippers," according to Bernard Metter, chairman of the huge J. Walter Thompson advertising agency.
Zappers change channels rather than watch commercials. The practice came in with remote control of channel changing. Zippers dispense with commercials while watching taped programs via videocassette recorder.
Metter has coined the term "flippers" to describe a manic new group of viewers bred by cable TV with its wide variety of channels. He says flippers keep switching from one channel to another constantly, without watching either a commercial or a program for more than a moment or so.
Reprinted from the Evening Gazette, Worcester, Mass.
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Opinions
My invitation to armchair detectives to solve the mystery of the Dan Rather beating has brought a quick and large response. I haven't been able to read them all yet, but I've come across at least one plausible theory.
Did Dan tune in wrong frequency?
Mike Royko
Chicago Tribune
It comes from an amateur sleuth named John "Sherlock" Brody, who lives on the North Side of Chicago. This is Brody's solution.
As we all know, Dan Rather was walking along Park Avenue in Manhattan one recent Sunday evening. He had been visiting a friend and was on his way home. Suddenly he was accosted by two well-dressed men in their 30s who gave him a severe beating while saying: "What is the frequency, Kenneth?"
That's the real puzzler in this mystery, the cryptic question: "What is the frequency. Kenneth?"
It has led the police and Rather to assume that this was a case of mistaken identity.
"But." Brody asks, "did these men
really say 'What is the frequency, Kenneth?' I think not.
In that, Brody concurs.
"What obviously happened is that being punched in the head added Rather's brain, which, considering his line of work, is highly addleable anyway.
"And he mistook what he heard for What is the frequency, Kenneth? But that isn't what the assailant actually said."
So what did he say?
"First let me establish the motive. I'm reasonably certain that both of these well dressed men were gay, a persuasion that is not unknown in that part of Manhattan."
"And one of them has a boyfriend named Kenneth who lived quite near the scene of the attack.
"This fellow suspected that Kenneth, on the sly, was seeing another man.
"He believed that because the second man waiting on the street had recently caught a glimpse of someone sneaking out of Kenneth's apartment and had tipped off the first man.
"As I said, he had caught only a fleeting glimpse of Kenneth's visitor. He did not actually see his face. But he did know he was of medium height, had dark hair and wore
"So the jealous boyfriend and his tipster were waiting near Kenneth's apartment, hoping to catch the rival making a visit to Kenneth.
aviator glasses and casual clothes
"Now along comes Dan Rather, who knows nothing of all this. But, because it is the weekend and he has been with friends on Long Island, he is wearing jeans, a striped sport shirt and aviator glasses.
"As Rather approaches, the tipsmistakenly says to the suspicious lover: 'That might be him.'
"The other man, consumed by his jealousy, says something to Rather Rather doesn't understand what the guy is talking about and says: 'You got the wrong guy.'"
"The jealous lover, taking the denial to be a mere evasion, indeed an admission of guilt, flies into a rage and pops Rather in the chops, knocking him down.
"He keeps repeating the same phrase, over and over, as the two of them keep punching and kicking Rather, who flees into the apartment building lobby.
"And in their minds, that is even further proof of the man's guilt, since it is the lobby of the very same building in which Kenneth lives. They assume that he is trying to reach the sanctuary of Kenneth's apartment.
"This heightens their fury and they pursue the attack in the lobby until the building superintendent comes and drives them off.
'When the police question him, a groggy Rather tries to remember what the man was repeating: 'What is the frequency, Kenneth?'
"An understandable error. Being in broadcasting so much of his life, the word frequency is a familiar part of Rather's vocabulary. But that isn't what he said. I am certain that the phrase that the angry man used was: "What, is this freak seeing Kenneth?"
"I'm sure that if the police check the list of tenants in that building, they will find a man named Kenneth. Questioning him should lead to the assailants, and this case will have been resolved.
"It is really quite elementary."
It makes sense to me. But on the outside chance that the police don't find Kenneth, we will continue our search for a solution to the "Case of the Secret Frequency."
And those who think they have a solution can write me at the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan, Chicago, 60611.
In the meantime, I'm working on my own theory. It has to do with Professor Moriarty being a CBS stockholder.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
OH,YOU KNOW...PROBLEMS BACK HOME...LIKE OUR DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN, LYING TO THE PEOPLE, GETTING CAUGHT TRYING TO OVERTHROW A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT...
Congressional departure is class act
Some members leave Congress bitter. Some leave happy. Some leave with class.
Berkley Bedell, an Iowa Democrat who came with the anti-war House freshmen of 1974, is leaving with class.
Eliot Brenner
UPI Commentary
In a rare baring of the soul on the House floor, Bedell explained why and explained a lot about himself and what has made him do what he has over the years.
The speech was quiet and reflective, from a thoughtful man sometimes given to emotional outbursts of table-pounding about "my farmers" or other issues.
The remarkable address came during the House's special orders, the time after regular business when
often just two members are in the chamber, one giving a speech and one in the chair.
Bedell, 65, was bitten by a tick last year and contracted Lyme's Disease, with symptoms similar to mononucleosis. He decided it was unfair to his constituents to run again, and bowed out. Two months ago, when it was too late to rescue his political career, he was cured of the disease. The irony has left him looking forward more than backward.
"I have always sort of been out of step at home. I was a Democrat among a whole group of Republicans," said Bedell, who kept winning re-election from a heavily Republican district.
Bedell, who parlayed $50 in newspaper route savings into one of the nation's major fishing tackle operations which he later sold to his children, recalled that after his election he spoke with an astronaut who had flown a moon mission. The astronaut likened Earth to a
spaceship with a crew of 3 billion, headed for danger because they were not working together.
It made a mark on Bedell.
"As we look at this planet Earth, I would hope we would realize that we have to either learn to live together or die together," said Bedell, who in recent years has been active in arms control issues in the House.
"It break my heart that we have (an opportunity for a nuclear test ban) and now it is passing by," Bedell said.
Bedell has left his mark on the House, in arms control, agriculture and Pentagon procurement.
He trudged the floor daily for months with a tool box, hauling out a wrench or bolt while he spoke to let members what it cost at a hardware store and how much more it cost the Pentagon.
He acknowledged he has been wrong, in particular in resisting the election of Kika de la Garza, D-Texas, as Agriculture Committee
chairman.
"It was a mistake. I want to tell everyone that I have made a mistake," he added, praising de la Garza's performance.
And he acknowledged he won no friends for his opposition to water projects.
Bedell, thanking his family and colleagues, added a special thanks to the House chaplain, who helped him through a rough soot in his life.
"I remember coming to your office when I had problems. I remember crying in your office, and I remember the help that you gave me and I thank you very much for what you have done." said Bedell.
As he leaves, Bedell said, "I have two choices. I could feel sorry for myself because due to an illness I am having to leave a job that I do not want to leave or I can rejoice for myself for the fact that I am now well again. That is an easy choice for me. Certainly the last is the one I want."
Bedell's leaving with class.
Under all the political mud lies the truth
About three months before the 1884 election, a newspaper reported that the Democratic presidential nominee had an affair with a local woman and had fathered her illegitimate child.
The Democrats asked their candidate what they should do and Grover Cleveland replied, "Tell the truth."
Arnold Sawislak
UPI Commentary
The truth, Cleveland said, was that he had sexual relations with the woman but did not know if the child was his. (Neither, says historian Stefan Lorant in his book, "The Presidency," was the woman sure who was the child's father.)
The Republicans pounced on the issue, parading to the chant, "Ma! Ma! Where's my pa?" Gone to the
White House, ha, ha, ha."
In what some historians have called the dirtiest presidential campaign in history, the voters had to choose between one candidate with a tarnished personal life but an impeccable reputation as a public official, and another with a questionable record for honesty in office but a pristine personal life.
So they gave Cleveland the highest public office in the land and retired Blaine to private life. But it was a close question: 10 million votes were cast and Cleveland won by 23,000.
All this is by way of noting that, 102 years later, a similar situation is unfolding in Baltimore.
Recently, the Republican candidate for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Parr Mitchell, D-Md., produced documents relating to paternity suits filed in 1968 and 1970 naming his Democratic opponent, Kweisi Mifune. GOP candidate St. George Crosse said the suits showed Mifune was part of the problem of teenage pregnancy and unfit to serve in Congress.
But there is more to the story. The paternity suits were never pressed because, in a statement filed by one of the women, Mfume "has been a loving, responsible and supportive father who has been a positive role model and an inspiration to his son."
Mfume, who earned a high school equivalency degree and put himself
Mifune's response was much the same as Cleveland's. He told the truth, which was that he not only had fathered the two children named in the suits but three others when he was between 17 and 22 years old.
through college, became a well-known radio talk show host in Baltimore, served on the city council and won the Democratic primary for Mitchell's seat. At his victory celebration Sept. 9, four of Mifune's sons were on the stage with him.
The district is solidly Democratic, and Mifune is almost sure to be going to Congress in January.
The moral of the story?
Obviously, it offers no solution to the teenage pregnancy problem, although some commentators have suggested that it does show something constructive can be salvaged when a young unmarried father owns up to his responsibilities.
But maybe there is a political lesson to be learned. Will a candidate who tells the truth about past indiscretions be forgiven by the voters? They did Grover Cleveland, Kweisil Mfume will get his answer Nov. 4.