V IE WPOINT :
The Battalion August 27,1981 -
Slouch
By Jim Earle
“You see I would like to keep Friday afternoons open
because I have a job at home, and Monday mornings are bad
because that’s my meditation period, and afternoons after
three have to be open for the checkers team, and I don’t
concentrate well during mid-day, and. . . ”
Dems: no direction
to take except up
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — It is never safe to
assume that the Democrats will deliver
what they have promised, but there are
some signs they are gathering themselves
for a second stab this fall at functioning as a
serious opposition party. As the saying
goes, they have no place to go but up.
In the first seven months of Ronald
Reagan’s reign, the Democrats have been
outhustled every which way. Reagan
pushed his budget and tax cuts to passage
over the opposition of the Democratic lead
ers of the House, demonstrating time and
again that the nominal Democratic control
of that body was worth about as much as a
Jimmy Carter campaign button.
The Democratic responses to Reagan’s
television speeches ranged from awful to
sort-of-adequate. Except on Social Security
and some of the environmental issues, they
showed little ability to exploit the openings
the administration provided.
Perhaps as a result, their fund-raising
lagged in a serious way. A compilation by
The National Journal of the mid-year re
ports to the Federal Election Commission
showed that in the first six months of 1981,
the three major GOP campaign committees
collected $43.3 million and their Democra
tic counterparts, $3.5 million. That is a 12-1
ratio.
Liabilities of that size are not going to be
overcome overnight. But the first step has
to be for the Democrats to find their voice.
And that they may finally be ready to do.
After much patient behind-the-scenes
negotiating, party chairman Charles T.
Manatt has obtained the necessary clear
ances from Democratic Senate and House
leaders to go ahead with the long-promised
party policy council. The announcement of
its makeup and mandate will be made after
Labor Day.
The council will be no bomb-thrower.
Out of deference to the sensitivities of Sen
ate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-
W.Va.), the word “policy” won’t even
appear in its title. It will be the Democratic
Strategy Council. Under the relentless
pressure of the Democrats’ self-conscious
caucuses, it has grown in size well beyond
the compact body of senior eleceted offi
cials that Manatt first envisaged.
A more venturesome and probably more
substantive channel for opposition party
thought may be provided by the Center for
Democratic Policy, a new and unofficial
organization which opened its Washington
office this summer. The chairman is Terry
Sanford, former governor of North Carolina
and now president of Duke University. The
operating executives are Ted Van Dyk and
Keith Haller, both veterans of past Demo
cratic campaigns, and the board of directors
includes almost every familiar Democratic
name, from Cyrus Vance to Barbara Jordan.
With $350,000 pledged toward the first-
year budget, the center has begun commis
sioning policy papers representing a spec
trum of views: Vance, Pat Moynihan and
Harvard’s Stanley Hoffmann on foreign
policy; 10 Democratic gurus on various
aspects of the economy. By fall, Van Dyk
says, there will be a steady stream of pap
ers, serving as raw material for seminars in
and out of Washington. Within two years,
they hope to expand to the scale of the
American Enterprise Institute, the conser
vative think-tank that provided so many
ideas and people for the Reagan administra
tion.
The third piece of this emerging Demo
cratic pattern involves the much-maligned
House Democratic leadership. Senior staff
members, still smarting over the defeats at
Reagan’s hands, are developing plans what
they hope may be a coordinated assault on
vulnerable administration policies. Their
tool is one so obvious it tends to be over
looked: the committee hearing.
What they envision is something like
this: A set of judiciary committee hearings
one week on the wave of bankruptcies and
corporate mergers. Banking committee
hearings the following week on the effect of
high interest rates on the housing industry
and anomaly of huge lines of credit being
extended to companies seeking to swallow
competitors. Then, foreign affairs commit
tee hearings on the sqabbles between the
State Department and the Pentagon on
American nuclear policy.
Given the egos and feuds involved in all
three of these ventures, they may never get
off the ground. But there is at least a glim
mer of life in the Democratic donkey. And
these days, that’s news.
The Battalion
U S P S 045 360
MEMBER
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Congress
Editor Angelique Copeland
City Editor Jane Brust
Photo E ditor Greg Gammon
Sports Editor Ritchie Priddy
Focus Editor Cathy Saathoff
Make-up Editor Greg Gammon
StaffWriters Bernie Fette, Kathy O’Connell,
Denise Richter,
Cartoonist Scott McCullar
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]
Meeting seems anti-climactic
Two
StU'
As I sat in a small meeting room at Texas
A&M University’s Research and Extension
Center in Dallas, I couldn’t help but think it
a rather inappropriate setting to appoint a
new University president.
Eight regents already were seated at a
conference table, a table much smaller than
the one in their meeting room on the Texas
A&M campus. An assortment of System
administrators were milling about the
meeting room and the sitting room adjacent
to it.
Press people kept coming in the front
door, some of them hurriedly setting up
television cameras. Several persons took
their seats in rows of yellow chairs lined up
for guests.
The furnishings in the meeting room
were attractive — a few plush chairs, sofas
and wall hangings — but in no way as ele
gant as the regents’ magnificent meeting
room in College Station.
Yet this was the setting where the re
gents were to end their year-long search for
a University president.
Minutes before the meeting began, one
Texas A&M official came over to me.
“Have you ever had the opportunity to
meet Dr. Vandiver?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t,” I said.
“He’s a tremendous man. I hope that
after the meeting and press conference
you’ll stay around to meet him.”
Even before that meeting began, Dr.
Vandiver had accepted the position. The
whole affair was rather anti-climactic, and
byT
ists
Coffee
Breaks
by Jane Brust
yet there was satisfaction in that official’s
praise of the new president.
The regents took an hour to discuss the
appointment. It took only minutes for them
to reconvene in open session and make the
appointment official. Those present now
knew the new president’s name but we all
had yet to meet him.
Vandiver’s entrance to the meeting room
was rather anti-climactic too. He gave his
official acceptance of the board’s offer and
expressed his appreciation shortly before
his wife Renee entered the room to join
him.
As she thanked the regents for her hus
band’s appointment it occurred to me that
the two of them bear a striking resemblance
to Ronald and Nancy Reagan. He is tall and
tan with distinguished gray hair and a heal
thy, bright smile. She is a petite and attrac
tive brunette, complete with poise.
The two of them were eager toi ifrnei
those present at the meeting; they set |dita
eager to begin their mission at Texas! is ^
University. tra
And perhaps the faculty, staff, still
and former students are eager for tit on
get here, relieved that the presi >oolt
search is over.
In the next few weeks, the
president’s Coke Building office wj
preparing for a new boss to settle ini
versity business. University workers
busy getting the president’s mansi
order for its new residents.
In contrast to the small crowd
small room in Dallas, there \\i|
thousands of people attending the
guration ceremony to be held in Ct I
Station some time this fall — and mini I
people will have a hand in planning; |
inaugural festivities.
There wasn’t a great deal ofcelel
at Wednesday’s board meeting, and
regents took a significant step for the
versity. The celebration will come
weeks ahead, but the significancew«
apparent until the new president!)
chance to settle into the business oil
the president of Texas A&M Univei
The regents have completed theirl
appointing a new University presideiitly,
official who spoke to me before the ■Itect
ing, as well as the members of the
believe Vandiver is a tremendous
He is now in a position to do tremaj
things for Texas A&M.
tur
lard:
stef
Network news needs gasp track'
By DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — According to a recent
survey, many newspaper readers and/or
network news viewers suspect that editors
and reporters are holding something back
from them.
These findings appear to jibe with pre
vious polls giving the news media low credi
bility ratings.
There probably are a number of reasons
for this attitude, but I put most of the blame
on television. Other types of programs have
no trouble winning viewer confidence, I’ve
noticed.
In sitcoms and the like, audiences
strongly identify with the characters, com
ing to think of actors as real surgeons,
lawyers or whatever. Yet when real repor
ters broadcast actual events, doubts creep
in. And some of this dubiety spills over onto
print journalism.
Part of the problem may be disorienta
tion. Televiewers, as we are all aware, are
accustomed to a certain amount of altitu
dinal coaching.
In sitcoms, for example, the laugh track
lets the home audience know whether a
wisecrack or a sight gag warrants a polite
titter, a resonant chuckle or a full-scale guf
faw. It’s a valuable service.
A viewer at home would feel pretty silly
falling out of his chair laughing at some line
that only merited a few snickers.
Home audiences have come to depend
on this external guidance, but on news
programs the cues are comparatively
subtle.
The relative importance of the day’s
events may only be indicated by the
amount of air time devoted to each. Such a
system is open to editorial vagaries that can
leave viewers feeling a bit confused.
Although there may be technical argu
ments against such an innovation, I would
like to see the networks experiment with a
“gasp track” similar to the ubiquitous laugh
track.
Why should a viewer sit beforffl)
tube in a state of perplexity, nol
whether a particular news item is si
to leave him amazed, astounded,
founded, flabbergasted, consternal
simply a little titillated?
After each report, as I envision
producers would dub in pre-n
sounds of people sucking in their
emitting low whistles, exclaiming
whiz” or muttering, “Well, Illbedai
Thus a viewer would know immef
whether he was expected to be a*
agape, thunderstruck, spellbound d
founded.
I can’t guarantee that gasp-tracke«
would always leave a viewer intellef
and emotionally fulfilled, and hence'
suspicion that something was beii
vered up.
But it should greatly reduce the
his smiting his forehead and
“Zounds!” when a deep sigh of relie
appropriate response.
(N
Warped
fiy Scott McCull