Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 9, 1987)
Page 2/The Battalion/Monday, March 9,1987 Opinion Bill’s not good enough for SMU, but he’s OK by Texas He is only 41 days into his new term and already the man has set two records. Gov. Bill Clem ents claimed his first record — the record for break- ing campaign promises the soon est — back when his new term was a mere babe of 14 days old. While on the campaign trail in Octo ber, Clements told a group of college students at Texas A&M, “It’s absolutely wrong to cut higher education. That is 180 degrees from what this state should be doing.” Five months later, Clements has pro posed tapping the Permanent Univer sity Fund and other areas of education funding as a solution to the state’s bud get crisis. The man is serious about his proposals. When he testified to the House Com mittee on Higher Education, Jess Hay, chairman of the University of Texas System, said he denounced Clements’ plan as a “betrayal of our trust to higher education.” Clements responded by telling Hay in a phone conversation that he will do anything he can to see that Hay is re placed as chairman. And of course, there’s Clements’ cam paign promise not to raise taxes — an absurd promise considering the state’s financial problems. Nonetheless, he made it. As Clements said Feb. 3, “I have the know-how and the commitment to tell Texans that I will veto any and all tax or fee increases. Bill Clements stands abso lutely firm on this.” Recently, he proposed an increase in sales and motor fuels taxes in a contin uation of “temporary taxes” passed by the Legislature under the Mark White administration. But enough on his record-breaking speed for breaking campaign promises. Anyone with a bit of foresight could have seen his double talk coming. Last week, however, Clements caught many Texans off guard as he stole his second record since taking office. With snake-like dexterity, Clements slithered up and claimed the record for being recognized the fastest by the public as a liar. Of course, I’m talking about his she nanigans with Southern Methodist Uni versity — a situation that earns him the title of liar, where his broken campaign Mike Sullivan promises only merits him the title of politician. After all, campaign promises are meant to be broken. But along with his newly earned title of Liar, Clements’ involvement with the payoffs to SMU football players should earn him the title of Impeached Gover nor. From 1983 until January when he took office, Clements served as the chairman of SMU’s Board of Gover nors. By hiring him, SMU had hoped Clements would help restore credibility to the board. When the NCAA investigations of SMU began to heat up during Clements’ campaign for governor, he said in inter views that if the allegations against SMU proved true, he would seek the harshest penalties for the university. Little did the public know what a sickening hypo crite the man is. On Mar. 3, Clements announced that, while serving as chairman, he and other board members had decided to “phase out” the payments to student athletes af ter the NCAA put the school on its sixth probation in 1985. Apparently, that was news to the other board members who denied knowledge of any payments, according to board member William Hutchison. He said an external committee was be ing set up to investigate Clement’s claims. Clements isn’t making the investiga tion any easier, as he refuses to give the names of his fellow conspirators to the board of governors or the NCAA. Fol lowing in the footsteps of big brother Reagan, Clements apparently is con fused about the specifics of the situa tion. Robert H. Dedman, SMU board member and friend of Clements, said, “The governor is trying to get together in his mind the sequence of events and under what circumstances the agreement was made — in a car, or at a party, or what.” But Clements, in his campaign fash ion, said, “There’s no question about what I’ve said. I’ve never varied and I’m not going to vary. What I’m saying, I stand behind.” Regardless of the questionable claims Clements makes about the deals — in cluding the claim that NCAA officials approved the payments — there is no questioning that Clements himself was in on the scandal. An interesting note is that SMU is calling for anyone involved in the scan dal to “publically disclose such informa tion and ... for the sake of the univer sity resign from any position within the university.” This means that because he's volved, Clements makes the blackfe SMU. He isn’t honorable enough to; on SMU’s Board of C Governors, but hi honorable enough to govern the states Texas. 1 can’t help but wonder about the* tegrity of a man who, after only 41 da in office, already has a track record | would make Ferdinand Marcos takem tice — a man whose sole duty istosei the best interest of Texans for anoii* three years and 10 months. If Clements, as chairman of S.\|| Board of Governors, wasn’t concent about breaking the rules, the reputatj of SMU, and the hearts — and poss;| the futures — of SMU students, fad and staff, why should he be so:| cerned about the welfare of 17 mil! faceless Texans? Considering his recent proposa.i cut into just about everything excep:: business, Clements isn’t concerned.; anything but his big-business bud'i and perhaps his ego. I’m not big business, and neitherii! most of you. So where does thatkB us? Barring an impeachment, it leavel 1,419 days away from a new govern l| Mike Sullivan is a senior joum: major and the Opinion Pageedmi The Battalion. What about the ideology? The Tower Commission re port lines up a rogues’ gallery of fools and in competents to blame for the Iran-contra fiasco, sparing no one, in cluding the presi dent. (He lacked Richard managerial acu- Cohon men.) But as anal- ysis, the report falls short: It does not question the ideology that shaped Rea gan Administration foreign policy and led to the current debacle. But as surely as the Watergate scan dal had its genesis in the suspicious and hostile personality of Richard Nixon, so does the Iran-contra affair stem from the ideology of Ronald Reagan. He holds a troika of fundamental beliefs: The Soviet Union really is the “focus of evil”; there are simple solutions to com plex problems; and government, given its head, will only botch things up. The report trips all over evidence of that line of thinking — but its authors, respectful of a popular president, shied away from ideological questions. The Tower report cites Secretary of State George Shultz’s June 1985 re sponse to a National Security Council memo about the Soviet threat to Iran. The NSC had just painted a “grim” pic ture of the Russian bear extending a paw to the south and concluded that the United States needed to “blunt Soviet influence” by allowing American allies to sell arms to Tehran. At that point Shultz, in effect, hollered “Wait a minu te!” Schultz said the memo “appears to exaggerate current anti-regime senti ment (in Iran) and Soviet advantages over us in gaining influence.” He re minded the NSC that “Iranians have a deep historical mistrust of the USSR” and noted that under the Shah, Iran’s relations with Russia “were closer and more cooperative than they are now.” Having made these necessary points, Schultz unfortunately then proceeded to take a long nap as the Iranian arms initiative took hold. The Schultz memo is one of the few examples cited in the Tower report where someone with standing chal lenged the knee-jerk anti-communism of the Reagan White House. Although Because several members of the The Battalion editorial board will be attending the Columbia Schol astic Press Association Conference in New York City from March I I- 14, some of the columns this week will not appear on their regular days. the arms sale to Iran quickly became an attempt to free American hostages, its intellectual justification was that this was an effort at Soviet containment or, any way, could always be explained as such. The virulent anti-communist rhetoric of Iranian leaders, the decimation of the Iranian communist party (the Tudeh) and, for that matter, the lessons the So viets have learned in Afghanistan, seemed not to matter to the White House. If it could not assemble evidence to support its ideology, it proceeded anyway. When you’re right, you don’t need facts. The tendency to reduce regional and discrete foreign-policy challenges into the old East-West struggle really started in Nicaragua. The secret diversion of funds to the Contras — maybe illegal, and possibly hidden from the president himself — is the direct consequence of Reagan’s rhetoric. He endowed regional struggles in the Middle East and Central America with an historic East-West di mension they lack. As a result, the cast of characters who made war on the sneak may be pardoned for thinking their first obligation was to history — and not to a congressional law cutting off funds. The president himself had es tablished the stakes. In tone and substance, the Tower Commission report reads like a manage ment study. It faults the president for being disengaged, for not knowing and not caring what his subordinates were up to. All that is obvious, and even in credible. But the larger problem is not one of management, but of Reagan’s pe culiar and simplistic ways of seeing things. Just as the president believed military spending could be dramatically in creased, taxes reduced and the budget balanced, so he believed in Iranian “mo derates” and Nicaragua freedom fight ers. The ability to simultaneously sell arms to terrorists, while at the same time condemning others who do so, is no more remarkable than calling for a bal anced budget after depriving the gov ernment of funds. With Reagan, the wish is not just the command; it is the entire program. The Washington wisdom is that the president needs to pay more attention to detail and rely less on his staff. That’s folly. It was a keen staff — vilified by conservatives as pragmatic — that saved him in his first term. And it was a staff that let Reagan be Reagan that has, in second term, brought the president so low. What ails the White House is not just bad management — that can be fixed — but the ideology and mindset of Ronald Reagan. For that, there is no remedy. Copyright 1986, Washington Post Writers Group The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Loren Steffy, Editor Marybeth Rohsner, Managing Editor Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor Jens Koepke, City Editor Jeanne Isenberg, Sue Krenek, News Editors Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor Tom Ownbey, Photo Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper oper ated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Sta tion. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Depart ment of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are $17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on re quest. Our address: The Battalion, Department of Journalism, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battalion, De partment of Journalism, Texas A&M University, College Station tx 77843-4 111. 0 MARGUUI6S <91907 MOfclbfJ F&T Mail Call Whaf s censored? EDITOR: Will Kenneth Brobst please present some of these “giant strides” and “evidence” found by creationists and present the methodology used in these experiments? I’ve received creationist information from “the horse’s mouth.” A friend and co-worker of mine taught scientific creationism at a small and undistinguished fundamentalist “college” in Shreveport, La. His entire tenet for rejecting evolution as an explanation for speciation rested on rejecting the efficacy of carbon-14 dating, with no testable evidence for that rejection. I asked him why he felt so negative about evolution. He replied, “It doesn’t fit in with my interpretation of the Bible.” This is a religious justification for creationism and his only justification. As for bigotry and censorship in this arena, let’s not forget the Scopes trial and the many attempts of fundamentalists (i.e., Mrs. Frost of Tennessee) at censorship. Nobody objects to the teaching of the biblical story of creation, but it should be taught in religion classes, not in science classes. Should medical schools teach shamanism? No, it is taught in anthropology classes, where it belongs. The only danger in teaching creationism would be in teaching it as science and the precedence this would set in allowing so-called religious zealots to apply double think to our educational processes. I am sure the entire intellectual community is very tired of fundamentalists spouting out with their claptrap they try to pass off as “truth” and “evidence.” Distortion of facts to fit one’s own world view is at least as immoral and unethical as any other misdeed, Brobst. Do you really believe that God would set up a world governed by natural laws which he himself would just ignore? Brobst, the “mumbo jumbo” is actually all in your corner. Ramsey L. Sealy, graduate student State funds? EDITOR: Assuming that The Battalion quoted Bob Wiatt correctly in his response to my letter to the Eagle, I must comment on his remarks. I am perfectly well aware of the source of funding for the parking garage, and that it will be paid for by revenues that the garage itself generates. However, I disagree with; his contention that this is not “state money,” which is patently absurd. Funds collected by state agencies, orthei subdivisions (e.g., the University’s police department)are “state funds,” even though they are not appropriated bv I the legislature, and it is nonsense to pretend that they are not. They are in fact taxes imposed by the state without legislative approval; calling them “user fees” or “parkinj revenues” does not change their nature. If the currentla* prohibits monies collected as parking fines or permit feet from being used to support academic activities, thenitis time for the law to be changed. Any surplus funds produced by the police department (or for that matter,^ athletic department) should be diverted into the general University budget, and used for enhancing the academic programs that are (or so we are told) the real reason that Texas A&M exists. They should not be used for empire- building on the part of the administration, nor for the ! personal aggrandizement of members of the Board of Regents. If the parking people can generate $12.3 millioc for a parking garage, they can also generate that amount for more worthwhile purposes, such as improving the collection at the library or for student aid, and for retention of quality faculty members. Parking is not the University’s prime function: education is. Any revenue generating activity which could enhance education,and which is not so used, is obstructive of the University's true mission. President Vandiver, in an address to the Faculty Senate, has expressed his distaste for the garage project and his inability to do anything about it. I, and sevenotM faculty members from my Gollege, have sent a letter to Governor Clements about this scandalous waste of mont 1 on yet another unnecessary building. I urge all students and former students who are concerned about the quaiit 1 of educational opportunity at A&M now and in thefutut 1 : to do the same. The Governor has publically announced his committment to supporting higher education, and"' believe that only he has the power to prevent the Boardc ; Regents from forcing this additional burden on the University. The facts are clear: the parking garage is a waste of money that could be used for better things. Itis “fat” in the University’s budget that should be eliminate^ Mr. Wiatt’s opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, j Thomas Caceci, Ph.D Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The edilont'^. { reserves the right to edit letters for style and length, but will make ever) ^ M nuiintain the author's intent. Each letter must be signed and must intWjj | classification, address and telephone number of the writer. 1