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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
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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
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