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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 1980)
th I ; kil ! ■ SATEP' HERE, COfiR/\DE; ALL VJE GC)T 15 GUERRILLAS. Opinion Clements says ‘no’ to Sooner or later, someone is going to have to make it very clear to Gov. Bill Clements that he cannot run the state’s executive office in the manner he ran his oil company. But whoever that someone is, he can expect to receive no help from the Austin district attorney. Clements met with the regents ofTexas Southern Univer sity, a state-supported college in Houston, on Jan. 30 to discuss certain irregularities found recently in the Houston college’s financial records. Apparently, the governor decided these irregularities are not for public scrutiny. Despite the protests of Austin news representatives, Clements held the meeting behind closed doors in flagrant violation of the state’s open records act. Several news organizations filed protests with Austin dis trict attorney Ronald Earle the next day. But on Friday, Earle finally announced he has no intention of pursuing the matter. He said that, while the state open meetings law does mandate that meetings among regents are to be held public- ally, it doesn’t specify the same for meetings between the board and another body, such as the governor. In other words, Earle has chosen to ignore the intent of the law and to favor a quirk in the wording of the law. Again, justice stumbles. Sometime soon, the public will have to stop viewing battles over open government as existing only between the government and the press. In such cases, the government isn’t saying “no to only the reporters; it is telling the public, “This is none of your business.” the small society by Brickman The Battalion USPS 045 360 LETTERS POLICY lA’tUrs to the editor should not exceed 3(H) u ords and an subject to /icing cut to that length or less if longer. Tin editorial staff reserves the right to edit such lettirs and does not guarantee to publish any letter bach letter must />< signed, shou the address of the uriter and list a telephoto number for verification. Address correspondence to lA'tttrs to the Editor. Tht Battalion. Room 216, Reed McDonald Building. Collegt Station. Texas 77H43. Represented nationally by National Educational Ad tising Services, Inc., New York City. Chicago and Los Angeles. The Battalion is published Monday through Fridas from September through May except during exam and holiday x*riods and the summer, when it is published on Tuesday hrough Thursday. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester. $33.25 per schooJ year. $35.00 per hill year Advertising rates furnished on request. Address: The Battalion, Room 216. Reed McDonald Building, College Station. Texas 77843. United Press International is entitled exclusively to the use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it. Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved. Second-Class postage paid at College Station. TX 77843. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editor or of the writer of the article and are not necessarily those of the University administration or the Board of Regents. The Battalion is a non-profit. self- supporting enterprise operated by students as a university and community newspaper. Editorial policy is determined by the editor. Viewpoint local The Battalion Texas A&M University Monday February 25, 1980 Reagan, Brown give Californiicoi touch to presidential election By DAVID S. BRODER The members of the Milford Junior Chamber of Commerce did what no one else had managed to do in the last two presidential campaigns. They created a forum where uniquely durable candidates, the governor of California and the former governor of California, could be seen and heard in sequence. Watching Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown speak from the same platform to the same crowd on a Saturday afternoon gave some fascinating insights into what has made these two men — both so easily ridi culed — so hard to dislodge from the pres idential picture. Reagan began running for President in 1968 and is still at it 12 year later. Brown started in 1976 and only a fool would assume that he will not be around as a candidate in 1988. MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Congress Editor Roy Bragg Associate Editor Keith Taylor News Editor Rusty Cawley Asst. News Editor Karen Cornelison Copy Editor Dillard Stone Sports Editor Mike Burrichter Focus Editor Rhonda Watters City Editor Louie Arthur Campus Editor Diane Blake Staff Writers Nancy Andersen, Tricia Brunhart.Angelique Copeland, Laura Cortez, Meril Edwards, Carol Hancock, Kathleen McElroy, Debbie Nelson, Richard Oliver, Tim Sager, Steve Sisney, Becky Swanson, Andy Williams Chief Photographer Lynn Blanco Photographers Lee Roy Leschper, Paul Childress, Ed Cunnius, Steve Clark What is it that has enabled these two men to play such a prominent political role over such a span of time, when so few others have managed it even once? There are some easy answers, but they do not help much. California is a big, poli tically important state. Sure. But so are New York and Pennsylvania and Illinois, and when was the last time their governors played serious presidential politics? Reagan and Brown are both good- looking, well-spokem men, but the politic al world is full of people equally blessed in visage and voice who never make it into the ranks of the presidential hopefuls. You get closer to the answer when you note that both Reagan and Brown have a gift for simplifying—some would say over simplifying — governmental complexities and presenting their proposals in under standable, non-bureauratic language. That talent was on display here and is the main reason the two Californians drew en thusiastic responses with their quite diffe rent messages. The Reagan speech was an almost word- for-word reversion to the basic speech of his 1976 campaign. Forgotten since his Iowa upset at the hands of George Bush are all the promises campaign manager John Sears made about the 1980-model Reagan being a man with fresh approaches to the emerging challenges of a new decade. The folks in Milford heard, as so many had heard in 1976, about the “welfare queen” in Chicago who was getting be nefits under 127 different names. They were told, once again, that the forms the federal government requires are number- ous enough “to cover Washington, D.C., 25 layers thick — and that’s not a bad idea. It was Reagan as before, turning billions of dollars of federal programs back to the states and cities. It was the Reagan of yore, asserting that his experience with the “hos tile Democratic legislature” in California had taught him that “if you can't make them see the light, you can sure make them feel the heat.” techonological and industrial basf he is proposing a reexamination ij lationships among business, eminent in order to sustain thd position of the United States in economy. Brown is talking about fundamei a Reagans was doing when hebew a dozen years ago about the danger lysis in an expansively bureaucrafit government. By DENIS Campi Texas A&M government is j an old friend. T Jurchase Progr jprnment’s disco dll become Ag „ Sue Vito, dire said the SPP be I the name chan Reagan came here to repeat his 1976 speech — the one that brought him within a few votes of defeating the incumbent Re publican President. Jerry Brown came here to rehearse his 1984 speech, the one that he hopes will bring him the presidency in that year. Nobody ever accused Brown of being dumb, and he knows he’s the odd- man-out in the 1980 Carter-Kennedy con test. You understand, seeingthehj one 69 and other 41 — that what and makes them the figures they®; belief in the validity of their own believers, they are ready to wait!;: — or the voters — to vindicate ments, even if that takes a long “We needed ithe whole proji didn’t get a gooc we needed a could relate to “Right now \ Jther book’ or ‘ dent governm But he also knows the country is in big trouble — the kind of trouble that no Presi dent is likely to be able to cure in four years. Alone in the presidential field, he is talking about the decline of America’s That vindication has not yet Reagan, and it may never arrive^ Brown. But they don’t knowtli admit it. Because they harbor! doubts about their parties a kindd nent California presence which much to liven the political comp years past, and, very likely, wil do so for years to come. (c) 1980, The WashingtonPostl By GAI1 Cam] Texas A&M as great foot laseball player have the bes omen’s billia Arkansas and 1 Three Aggie: annual oassoci ions-Internatio tournament F Rouge, La. |; Thirty other different ever A&M to keep |phy for the mo: Bbumament. || A total of 3 . schools were al lyersity to com i Gary Gray ai first place in t : Sion, and Gray the individual Spring is in t great, and it’s t two-wheeler ar this year’s bicy OJ The 1980 O O’ thon is being or College Statioi J dents, organiz; ^ are being askei ' I “We want to people and org ject as possibh man of the bil The date fc April 12, but t arranged, Mos “It’s still in Letters Protecting human life is important Editor: The International Year of the Child has recently expired, yet after all the efforts to give children their so-called “rights,” no national effort has been made to give the primary right of life to the unborn child. The unborn child is the most vulnerable of all people; he must be totally dependent upon the body of his mother until he is given birth. He is at once the responsibility of society and a hop of society. He must be protected; human life is the most valu able resource of any nation. But what if society does not think that he is valuable? What if his mother does not want to have children at the time of his conception? What if tests show that he will be born handicapped? What if his life will be shortened by consuming, painful dis ease? The core issue is this: Does human life have intrinsic worth? Are human beings actually “endowed with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness"? If this statement is true, then it cannot be applied conditional ly. A human being, because he is a creation and is in the image of God, has infinite worth. His worth is not based upon his possible contribution to society, his mother’s attitude toward carrying him dur ing her pregnancy, his health, or any other arbitrary factor. Because he is human, he is entitled to the opportunity to life. We oppose both federally-funded, and legalized abortion. No matter what difficul ties exist, protecting human life is the high est calling of law in society. Scott Travis ’8 1 Tim E| Richard )(• Batt bricks Editor: _ The Batt editor catches a lot of* | think it ought to be congratulate^ earns them. The sports section* ‘ looking good lately. It is nice to* 1 I than one story. Now there areev® 1 on more than one sport. Good*, David M THOTZ By Doug Grr IT'S SIMPLY AMAZAMLj WHAT YOU GAN DO with a cremt cm. AhlL A AFTERNOON IN HDV)5Y0N DuRtNfa THE