Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Posted for Bill..Sue
Clinton should act for the children and take on the NRA
By Mary McGrory
WASHINGTON It's time for Bill Clinton to do something wonderful. Past
time, really.
The luckiest man on the planet has once again escaped, without truth or
consequences, from a mess of his own making. Judge Susan Webber Wright,
explaining an exceptionally high threshold on male chauvinist piggery,
declared that while the alleged behavior was "boorish and offensive,"
once
doesn't count in Arkansas. Wright gave him another chance.
The president is spared the terminal humiliation of being the first
president in
history to be put on trial. The country is spared, too. One less sworn
account
of the dialogue and interaction between Paula Jones and the
then-governor of
Arkansas in a Little Rock hotel room is a blessing to all. Who could not
be
grateful for the reduction in the pond-scum content of the news that has
been
so prevalent in our lives since Jan. 21, the day Bill Clinton brought
Monica
Lewinsky into our lives? He owes us for those weeks in the swamp. We
deserve a little time in the uplands.
April Fools' Day, which brought him the amazing grace of Judge Wright's
deliverance, should have suggested to him a radical change of subject in
the
national dialogue. He need only review the events that transpired here
while
he was in Africa to see how the second half of his second term could be
infused with high purpose, not to mention his ever-soaring popularity.
What is
he saving it for?
He has an incomparable opportunity to show himself the friend of
children he
has always claimed to be. The next generation is being stalked. Big
Tobacco
is telling them it's cool and sexy to smoke - the sooner they start, the
better.
And they are in mortal danger from gunslingers, some their own age, as
the
president's home state horrifically demonstrated while he was gone.
The day the president got his reprieve, states' attorneys general sat
shoulder
to shoulder with Big Tobacco. They were gathered for what former FDA
administrator David Kessler called the first action to break the "hold
the
industry has had over the Congress." At the same time, across the street
on a
patch of grass called "the swamp," gun control advocates huddled in the
rain
around the valiant first couple of Handgun Control Inc., James and Sarah
Brady. As the drops fell on the press releases and cross cameramen, Sen.
John Chafee, R-R.I., and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., proffered their
modest
proposal for "Child Firearms Access Prevention Act" in response to the
atrocity in Arkansas.
You think it's too much to ask of a politician who is timid except in
amour to
confront his own people on such an emotional subject? In his part of the
world, and the West, too, guns seem to be as precious as children.
Hunting is
regarded as a unique bonding experience between the generations. The
president grew up in the tradition and could talk all the better to them
about
the need for change.
The markup of the tobacco settlement bill of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
proves that these vast subjects can be moved around under the right
auspices. Cigarette smokers have been driven to the doorways of their
office
buildings in icy winds, routed from planes, restaurants and their own
homes
because high-minded men like Kessler and former Surgeon General C.
Everett Koop convinced the country that smoking was not a right but a
public health problem. And also because Big Tobacco raised its right
hand
before Congress and swore that nicotine is not addictive or smoking
dangerous when it knew perfectly well it is, and continued to woo teen
smokers.
It would be hard, particularly for someone who needs so badly to be
loved,
for Clinton to tell his own people they must look at their beloved guns
as a
menace. But he should think of Lyndon Johnson of Texas, who faced the
rage of his fellow Southerners to lead the country on civil rights. His
best
friends in Congress were powerful chairmen, ardent segregationists. But
Lyndon Johnson cried out in Congress, "We shall overcome." He did. Some
issues require a president.
Clinton would take heat from Bubba if he said he must lay down his gun -
or
even license it - so our children could come home from school alive. The
power
of the gun lobby - the withering fire of its rhetoric, its overflowing
coffers,
the terror it breeds in Congress - has generated despair in opponents.
Only a
president can rescue our children. Clinton owes us a try.
--
Two rules in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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