OPINION
Thursday, August 3,1989
Unpopular politician
are hard to come by
ir
Every now and again it occurs to me
that Sen. Phil Gramm might be just
enough of an ideologue to prove useful:
he’s such a pushy little squirrel he’s
made himself thoroughly unpopular
with his colleagues. But a politician will
ing to be unpopular is hard to come by
and a man ready to throw a spanner
into the works occasionally can be worth
his weight in awful legislation killed.
Molly
Ivins
Syndicated Cote
The trouble with Gramm is that so far
he’s always been on the wrong side. And
now he’s on the right side for the wrong
reason, and what’s even more confusing
is that he’s on the wrong side of his ar
gument.
Ispon
'and J
Aug.
Tr
Then the junior senator fromTi
took a fit and is now holding _ r
whole works. Theoretically, Grant | c i ass
SPtS&f)'/
One giant editor’s note
Gramm is trying to stop the S&L bail
out bill, and the immediate consequence
of that move is to further stretch out the
process and to cost everybody more
money — $20 million a day. It would be
worth the cost if Gramm had a good al
ternative bill, and a chance to pass it.
standing for fiscal responsibfc
working against the effort toexem[)!
S&L bailout from the provisk®
Gramin-Rudman. Except even
Gramm votes to exempt stuff
Gramm-Rudman — he voted toea
a $4.1 billion expenditure jusl
Thursday.
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I "Man
This summer has been a hot one, es
pecially for The Battalion’s opinion
page.
Save the whales. Save the trees. Nuke
the trees. Add a crossword puzzle to the
page. Go to Iran and run ads for terror
ists. I’ve heard it all this summer. We
were bombarded with so many flag-bur
ning letters that I had to abort (excuse
me, I mean burn) some of them. But
that’s OK, these are the controversial is
sues and opposing viewpoints that make
people turn to page two.
[uliette
<izzo
Opinion Page Editor
the page, let me say that letters to the
editor are written by the readers for the
readers. And to fill Mail Call, what some
say is the most read section of the page,
(and the paper for that matter), we need
all the letters we can get. So don’t be
afraid to write one. We don’t bite, and
heck, we at The Battalion don’t even an
swer them back.
But nooooo, Gramm is supporting
the original, truly dishonest bill pro
posed by the Bush administration. In
other words, he’s trying to stop a bad bill
and replace it with a worse one, instead
of a better one. The whole mess looks
like a bad joke about Aggie economics.
Gramm says he’s trying to stop:!:::
plosion of the deficit — the onlyw| ’ here
do that would be to raise taxestopatl lr
the damn S&L bailout — and thaisl ^
s train
what he wants to do. Rjteert
Th
As a practical matter, the Bush
would make the deficit even worse
Now that’s my opinion. Not the opin
ion of the entire Battalion staff, not the
opinion of the editorial board and cer
tainly not the opinion of the entire Uni
versity. It’s mine. All mine and, accord
ing to the first amendment, I’m entitled
to such opinions. And some of these be
long on the page, after all, isn’t opinion
the stuff page two is made of?
I am writing this column to clear up
some things for the readers of page two.
In the past couple of weeks I’ve received
several letters to the editor that have
said basically the same things, namely
that the “narrow-minded, emotional
rather than reasonable” views of The
Battalion staff and its editorial board
are reflected in the columns and edito
rial cartoons we run on the page. One
letter clearly suggested that the entire
editorial board is in favor of abortion on
demand.
This is a matter of opinion. Let me
make it clear that I, as an editor, do not
let my opinions appear on the page un
less I express them in a column under
my byline; nor do I let my personal
views affect the daily decision of what to
print. And as for the joint opinions of
the editorial board, which is composed
of eight editors, including myself, they
are designated on the page as such and
are not usually voiced daily, only when a
situation arises about which we feel
strongly enough to take a stance.
To sum it all up, page two is a forum
for individual expression about na
tional, international and local events.
It’s kind of a combination of every page
of The Battalion including the sports
page. (Hey, we even ran a Pete Rose col
umn once.) To keep the page interest
ing, we need your input.
At issue is the $50 billion (ha-ha) the
bill sets aside to close or merge about
600 failing thrifts. Numero uno, it’s
going to cost a hell of a lot more than
$50 billion to bail out that many S&Ls:
the government has already spent $30
billion on the 200 thrifts it has bailed out
so far, Numero Two-o, because of his
“read my lips, no new taxes” pledge.
To give you an idea of how bade
whole bailout plan is, accordingtoi
Dallas Times Herald, it is “a pieceofi [
islation that is regarded by banking
perts as one of the most solid an
sponsible bills ever to emerge
Congress.” Does that give you anid
how bad we’re getting the shaft-1
bankers are real happy.
Now the rest of the page is kind of a
random sampling of opinions from
readers whose interest to respond is
sparked by something on or off the
page. Guest columns are just that —
they’re written by someone other than a
staff member. And Mail Call, our letters
column, is, as Paul LaRocque of the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram once said, the
readers’ soapbox. To dispel the myth
that we sometimes make up letters for
Now I realize that the opinions on the
page do not necessarily agree with those
of others. But, expressing my one opin
ion paves the way for others to do the
same in the form of letters to the editor
and guest columns. So, if you agree with
the opinions on the page, tell us, and if
you get hot under the collar from some
thing on the page rather than the sum
mer heat, don’t keep your opinions to
yourself, let them be heard. EXPRESS
YOURSELF! A common misconception
is that a newspaper’s editorial page is
used as a medium of expression for the
opinion page editor only. Wrong. Page
two is not mine, it’s yours.
Bush refused back taxes to pay for
even the $50 billion, and instead de
cided to borrow the money over 30
years, which will cost $306 billion with
interest.
I propose again that we solve
mess with the people’s favorite tax
let’s don’t tax you, let’s don’t tax me,
tax that fellow behind the tree,The
low behind the tree* friends, is then
who caused this mess to begin
let’s tax the financial industry to paylf
bailing out the financial industry.
sions
trol,
dustr
Paj
Cl
Juliette Rizzo is a junior journalism
major and opinion page editor for The
Battalion.
You tell me why that’s smart. Bush’s
plan was to set up a special agency to
borrow the money so the sum wouldn’t
show up in the deficit: like, he’d take us
$306 billion further into hock and tell us
it wasn’t even happening. That’s worse
than dumb, that’s criminally irresponsi
ble. The Senate voted for the Bush plan
by a very narrow margin, but the House
refused to go along.
Meantime, Dallas continues, as2
ways, to astonish and delight its f)
One of the odd bits of information
surfaced during the recent flapol
whether a lesbian who is openly lest
can become a police officer (noting
las is the answer) was DPD’s polio
this regard.
Revenge can be sweet
A reader named Louise Penberthy of
Atlanta, who described herself as a
Northerner, was concerned about a re
cent column in which it was my intent to
get even with some dimwit in Chicago
who circulated a bogus “Application to
Live in North Carolina.” This putrid
piece went the rounds among the em
ployees of Sears in Chicago after it was
rumored the company might be moving
to Charlotte.
The application dealt in numerous
Southern stereotypes and in my of
fended and wounded state, I decided to
do the only sensible thing — take re
venge.
So I wrote a column dealing in North
ern stereotypes (Northern women don’t
shave their legs, etc.), and reader Pen
berthy responded: “As a Northerner, I
was appalled to read the nasty stereo
types put forth by Northerners concern
ing Southerners.
Lewis
Grizzard
Syndicated Columnist
Southerners have been called red
necks, hicks, hillbillies, and worse.
We’ve been humiliated in movies that
depict us as one great collection of
drawling, drooling, dregs of the earth.
They bought the 30-year payback
plan, but said it had to show up on the
books, not be put “off-budget.” That
way, the government borrows the
money in its own name at lower rates,
instand of this new quasi-governmental
agency, and the taxpayers are saved as
much as $40 billion interest over the 30
years.
The Police Department person
policy manual states that applied
“must not have engaged in deviants 1
ual contact with “an animal or fowl®
age 17.”
Now, wait a minute. What is this?
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Ellen Hobbs,
Editor
Juliette Rizzo,
Opinion Page Editor
Fiona Soltes,
City Editor
Drew Leder, Chuck Squatriglia,
News Editors
Steven Merritt,
Sports Editor
Katny Haveman,
Art Director
Hal Hammons,
Makeup Editor
“However, there was no reason for
you to turn around and do what you de
cried so loudly and at such length.”
Au contraire — which is French for
an American word involving the horned
bovine.
In the first place, taking revenge is
the best way I know of to get even, and
getting even is one of life’s greasiest
pleasures.
After I wrote the aforementioned
colum, my spirits lifted and I celebrated
by burning a copy of The New York
Times, which the Supreme Court re
cently ruled was OK as long as you
weren’t pregnant and thinking about
having an abortion.
Editorial Policy
And I’m tired of all that, so no matter
what Louise Penberthy has to say, I
wasn’t about to miss out on the opportu
nity to demonstrate two can play the
game of peering-down-a-nose.
Copyright1989, Cowles Syndicate
But the House didn’t want to take the
hickey for raising taxes either, so in
stead of raising the $50 billion now, they
decided to end-run the Gramm-Rud
man deficit rduction law by exempting
the S&Ls money from Gramm-Rud
man.
Why are animal lovers given a t'|
year break over gays? Who wrote
policy and why did they write it
way? Who would think to ask sin
question in the first place? How rtf
sheep fondlers do we have on
Friends, do you want someone who* 1
in love with a parakeet at 17 onyourfi
lice force? A teen-age bunny lover?
Write your city councilperson nf
concerning this grave new threat 1
public safety.
HO^ZN FtST
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