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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1981)
The Battalion Viewpoint September 1, Slouch By Jim Earle “I’m not sure how well you did when you changed your schedule. Although you did get rid of that afternoon class on Friday, you lost your seat in chemistry, English, and phy sics. The Reagan strategy is to break adversaries By DAVID S. BRODER WASHINGTON — Ronald Reagan likes to break things. He has this reputation as a sweet, good-hearted fellow you’d love to have as a neighbor or a pal. A nice guy who walks old ladies across the street and helps kids learn their Scout knots. But you look at his record, and you see he breaks things. Since he became Presi dent, he broke the back of the Democratic resistance in Congress and he broke almost 50 years of expansion of the welfare state. He broke Congress to his fiscal discipline the way a wrangler breaks a colt to a saddle. He doesn’t brutalize. He applies force cleanly, leaving his victims to say, in Tip O’Neill’s words, “No hard feelings, old pal.” But break them he does. Last week he set out to break the air traffic controllers’ strike and bust the union that called it. A union, incidentally, that endorsed him for President. What nobody seems to notice is that for Reagan, the action was perfectly in charac ter. He rarely blusters. He doesn’t fight dirty. But he lets nothing stand in his way. Back at the beginning of his political career, in 1966, he bowled over two nice guys — Republican George Christopher and Democrat Pat Brown — who made the mistake of thinking this actor was a pushov er. They never knew what hit them. Two years later, he set his sights on the presidency. The presidency. The prospec tive nominee of his party was fellow- Californian Richard Nixon, a man regarded as a martyr and a hero by many Republicans who thought he unfairly had been counted out of the White House in 1960. Reagan was not one of those sentimentalists. He did everything in his power — right up until roll-call time — to break Nixon’s grip on the nomination. In 1976, he came right back seeking the same prize. This time, the Republicans had a President. His name was Jerry Ford. A lot of Republicans, including some of Reagan’s own financial and political backers, thought Ford deserved a chance for a full term. Not Reagan. He fought until the last vote was counted in Kansas City to break Ford’s lease on the White House. In 1980, for many observers, the key break in the campaign came in Nashua, N.H., on the Saturday night before the primary. Reagan had lost to George Bush in Iowa, and had agreed with Bush to a one- on-one debate in Nashua. Bush kept the commitment; Reagan broke it. He showed up with four other Republican contenders, demanding they be included, and so flum moxed Bush that the erstwhile front-runner was never the same again. A lucky break? If so, it was one Reagan contrived. Jimmy Carter thought he could sidestep Reagan’s uppercuts, but in the Cleveland debate’s closing round, Reagan nailed him cleanly and left him on the deck. The same go-for-broke approach has characterized his presidency. He offered Congress a “partnership,” but it quickly became plain that it would have to be on his terms. When the year began, the expecta tion was that the tax and budget bills would be hammered out between the Democratic House of Representatives and the Republi can Senate, in a consensus process reflect ing the mixed verdict of the 1980 election. But three times, Reagan rejected the counsel of compromise and put the House through his personal political wringer — breaking away enough Democratic defec tors to leave the opposition party de molished, its leadership in disarray. The bolters said they were afraid to oppose Reagan, and the President raised his cham pagne glass in triumph. Then came his first bout with a labor union. Critics had complained that Reagan had no policy for controlling wage inflation. They were wrong. His policy is the oldest of all: union-busting. The controllers were perfect for his pur pose — a small union of highly paid govern-' ment employees, performing a service that was specially vital for Reagan’s business and middle-class constituency. If 15,000 wel fare workers had walked off their jobs, Reagan might not have filled the Rose Gar den with his righteous wrath. But with this union and this strike, he was guaranteed applause. Citing the no-strike pledge in the con trollers’ constract, Reagan moved in the first hours of the strike to end negotiations, decertify the union as a bargaining agen- t,impound its treasury and jail its presi dent. “He’s tough as nails on this,” an anonymous aide said somewhat unneces sarily. Within 48 hours, those who re mained on the picket lines were being per manently discharged from their jobs and facing a presidential blackball on any future government employment. As in most of the previous instances of his career, Reagan managed to make his “break-the-so-and-sos” stance very popular politically. His nice-guy character is so deeply etched in the public consciousness that nobody seems to notice his grip on the adversary-of-the-moment’s windpipe. In this sense, his response to the control lers’ challenge is very much in character with his earlier dealings with George Christopher, Pat Brown, Dick Nixon, Jerry Ford, George Bush and Tip O’Neill. The message is getting around: Don’t mess with this guy. Whatever gets in his way, he tries to break. Warped Enthusiasm no excuse for rudenes BY Their faces were fresh and shining, their eyes bright and wide. At first glance they looked like your basic good of American kids — wholesome, a little innocent, and contagiously enthusiastic — all the qualities we’ve been taught to strive for. Yes, the freshmen at Texas A&M Uni versity have been well drilled in Aggie tra dition and enthusiasm. It was evident Mon day at All-University Night. Painfully evident, I hate to say. As I sat amidst the crowd at G. Rollie White Coliseum, I couldn’t help wondering if maybe enthusiasm can be taken too far, even if that enthusiasm is part of our be loved Aggie tradition. When an acting president of a major university can’t get a word in edgewise be cause of the constant onslaught of Aggie whoops and hisses, I have my doubts about the wisdom of integrating any dire need for those whoops and hisses into the minds of incoming freshmen. Somehow I’ve always wanted to hold the tradition of whoops and hisses as slightly sacred. After all, older Aggies told me when I came to Texas A&M that Aggies never boo or whistle. It isn’t polite, they said. Big deal. thing. Yell practices such as theom the end of the program Monday^ 0 Ume On My Own time and a place for whoops. games and concerts are places fori) vailat Bad calls by referees are a time for lis is are Army Rock stories. By Belinda McCoy I’ll even go so far as applause after the introduction of known speaker or after an enl speech is a time for whoops. Alta are an Aggie tradition, and tht) wanted to be an Aggie. I personally don’t find it a bit more polite to interrupt a speaker with constant whoops than I do with occassional whistles. And is it really necessary for an entire coliseum full of Aggies to hiss during the introduction of a speaker just because that speaker attended some other university be sides Texas A&M? How can it possibly be considered “mature” for more than 8,000 college students to whoop three times and hiss twice during one sentence by a speaker? I’m not against enthusiasm. I think it’s great. I fell in love with Texas A&M be cause of the enthusiasm Aggies have for their school. But there is a time and a place for every- But I also think that if a person out of his schedule to deliver at speech to students at Texas A&! serves the privilege of an attend, who responds to his statement genuine enthusiasm, not somej reaction produced as the result oli found freedom. n Oi Speeches by dignitaries are neil time nor the place to hold practiceis for Aggie whrxrps and hisses—trail no tradition — from either wholes indhij nocent, enthusiastic freshmen ortl«P™f 01 er counterparts. Being an Aggie doesn’t included* to be rude. sifr .AL.COULDTOM) CASPAR TME YOUR LIVELY eorekbn POLICY DEBKTE. ELSEWHERE? irs pr< Thi am pi ipport vho hi ty am ncludi iinderj i/ie :ipat lorn ectii hose 'lass* The Texas ^ was 2.E Stuc at least m the vho m Saturn and the single girl By DICK WEST United Press International WASHINGTON — The spectacular, yet mystifying, photographs sent back from Saturn by Voyager 2 raised many questions about the planet’s moons and rings. Since the scientists in charge do not themselves know quite what to make of all they have seen, it might be presumptuous of me, a mere layman, to offer definitive explanations. Yet any project that cost as much as this one surely should be examined from every perspective. Take, for example, the moon Hyperion, which seemed to change shapes each time a new photograph was taken. My cousin Jus- tina was a lot like that. In one snapshot, Justina would appear as thin as a No. 2 pencil; in another, she assumed blimp-like configurations. Even today I cannot tell from looking through the family album whether Justina was angular or rotund. Admittedly, Justina’s shape was not as versatile as Hyperion’s, which was various ly described as resembling a peanut, a prune and an arrowhead. From my angle, I would have said Hyperior more closely resembled a baked potato. But I am willing to concede the resolution of my television set is not as reli able as it might be. Some nights even Bar bara Walters looks a bit potato-like. Anyway, Hyperion’s mutability suggests there may have been more wrong with Voyager 2 than a stuck camera platform. Weak flashbulbs is my guess. Permit me to quote a passage from “Side Effects, ” a book by the noted amateur astro loger, Woody Allen: “Lying on his back in bed, with his fat stomach jutting into the air and his mouth forming an inane smile, he appeared to be some kind of inanimate object, like a large football or two tickets to the opera. A mo ment later, when he rolled over and the moonlight seemed to strike him from a dif ferent angle, he looked exactly like a 27- piece starter set of silverware, complete with salad bowl and soup tureen.” This is precisely what I suspect happened in the Hyperion photos. Hyperion is, after all, a moon. Of are its reflected light created i sions in the Voyager 2 cameras, account for the phantasmagoric slf the pictures. As for Justina, I recall that \ ment was troubled by insomnia, he couldn’t sleep, he passed thetimij ticing moonlight photography, could account for the phantasi shapes of Justina. Now that Voyager II is on its Uranus, I hope NASA technicians some attention to juicing up its flasli Uranus may not be as photoi^ Saturn but it does have nine rings moons. Thus arises a danger offiirt tuations brought about by eii moonglow. If, in some pictures, a Uranus shaped like Justina, they can’t say warn them. By Scott McCullar The Battalion USPS 045 360 MEMBER Texas Press AssociaHon Southwest Journalism Congress Editor Angelique Copeland Managing Editor Marcy Boyce City Editor Jane G. Brust Asst. City Editor Kathy O’Connell Copydesk Editor Jennifer Afflerbach Photo Editor Greg Gammon Sports Editor Ritchie Priddy Focus Editor Cathy Saathoff Asst. Focus Editor Debbie Nelson News Editors Bernie Fette StaffWriters . . . Frank L. Christlieb, Terry Duran, Phyllis Henderson, Colette Hutchings, Belinda McCoy, Denise Richter, Rick Stolle Cartoonist Scot McCullar Graphic Artist Richard DeLeon Photographers Brian Tate Becky Swanson, Dave Einsel EDITORIAL POLICY The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper operated as a community service to Texas A&M University and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Bat talion are those of the editor or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M Universi ty administrators or faculty members, or of the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory iie»^ students in reporting, editing and photognpk within the Department of Communications. Questions or comments concerning any editor^? should be directed to the editor. 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