European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 12, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday. February 12,1986 James Reston can voters really decide what s Best for country. _.�aimam.-., since the beginning of the new year the politicians have been battering the citizens with remedies for everything from the common cold to the cold War from the Middle East to the Middle West not forget Ting outer have to wonder what the Ordinary Joe or Jose Phine thinks about All this while trying to pay last year s Bills and this year s expenses. January was bad enough with the tragedy in the Florida skies but february has been no Daisy. It s a melancholy Skinny Little month and probably should be eliminated from the Calendar by constitutional amendment. In downtown Washington the streets were full of ice and on Capitol Hill the speeches were full of Slippery statistics. If you went out you might break your leg and if you stayed Home listening to the news from Washington Haiti and the Philippines it might break your heart. Cheer up says the president. America is on the move. The United states is the economic Miracle the Model to which the world once again turns. America believes. America is ready. America can win the race to the future. Nothing is impossible no Victory beyond our reach no glory will Ever be too maybe so say the democrats but Tell it to the Blacks in the City slums and to the Farmers in the Middle West. The econ omy May be a Miracle for the Rich they insist but is a disaster for the poor with one american out of seven living below the administration s official poverty pay attention to outer space says Secretary of defense Weinberger. Our strategic defense initiative in outer space is the Hope of the future. Don t Call it Star wars he says Call it sd1, but at Home and abroad a lot of serious scientists outside of politics think ski is a silly Damn idea. All this raises a fundamental question about what the administration is doing and whether it is reasonable to suppose that these budget scientific and military tangles can really be left to the people. Thomas Jefferson did not think so. He believed in representative government and wanted the members of the Congress to Puzzle Over problems he thought were beyond the understanding of the Ordinary voter. That s what the Congress is now trying to do. There not Only the democrats but the Republican leaders in the House and Senate Are challenging the president s budget particularly his defense increases at the expense of social programs. When the Republican Leader in the Senate Robert Dole of Kansas was asked what he thought about All this he said Well he did t want to argue with the president on his 75thbirthday. It s fairly Clear what the administration is doing As it comes up on the congressional elections of i986. It to hold control of the Senate in the last two years of Ronald re again s second term in the White House. If it cannot do William Buckley so with no Chance of holding the House it will clearly be in the administration is appealing to the people Over the head of the Congress to support the president. If you like my which the people obviously do Back him and the candidates of his party. That s the White House theme. With this in mind the president is mounting another publicity Campaign with the people. He has never been More energetic than he is now planning speeches All Over the coun try meeting with foreign leaders celebrating anniversaries supporting Republican senators for re election and looking Forward to another Summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in Washington in the summer it s a fabulous exercise for a 75-year-old Man condemning the welfare state philosophy of the democrats in the past and dreaming about Star wars and a capitalist Triumph in the next Century. The voters obviously love it but Don t quite know what to make of it. Reagan is so popular that if for example be bad proposed in his state of the Union message that the 22m amendment should be scrubbed so that he could run again they might even have gone along with it. But the Congress has another idea it has listened to All his notions about the Pentagon and taxes and cutting Down on the programs of the new Deal and it is drawing a Tine Between the president s popular Ity and his programs. They know that the voters Don t and can t Saizow about All these mysteries of economics and outer space and so the members of Congress will vote As they should in a representative government for what they think is right regardless of what is popular. C in York Terr no Banff Fafian paranoia afflicts new York s governor Mario Cuomo governor of new York seems to be saying that there is so much anti italian prejudice in America he has no Choice but to contend with it by running for president and getting elected. Of yes and if he runs for president and in t elected Why that Means he was right the whole time there s a huge anti italian prejudice out there. It s an Odd thing to talk about anti italian prejudice in the most influential state of the Union in which the governor is of italian descent and a Democrat and one of the two senators is of italian descent and a Republican. The second senator is of Irish descent. A Mario would say but new York is different. To which observation the balance of the country would no doubt say thank god. But in fact new York state is two demographic realities new York City and upstate. And or. Cuomo did Well in both regions. If he were nominated for president by the democratic party the following is a pretty Safe bet namely that More voter would vote for him merely because he is of italian descent than would vote against him because he is of italian descent. Mario Cuomo s sensitivity is something of a phenom Enon. Sensitivity is in Many respects an admirable human trait but it can paralyse one s judgment. A Fine example of this is the now famous statement by or. Cuomo that there is no such thing As the mafia. To suggest that there is is to engage in anti italian Defa mation. Presumably All those people who shoot each other and get electrocuted simply adopted italian names to confuse us. Or. Cuomo sometimes seems to be implying that to concede the existence of a mafia membership in which is predominantly italian american is the same thing As suggesting that All italian americans Are Mem Bers of the mafia. His causes the governor to make Gross gestures every now and then. Joseph so bran the syndicated columnist stoutly defended last Spring president Reagan s decision to go to the cemetery at Pitburg. This defense caused a cartoonist in Albany to depict Sobran As a Gestapo guard at a nazi concentration Camp a vile act of polemical aggression. Because gov. Cuomo had smelled anti italian prejudice in one of Sobran s columns he picked up the Telephone and congratulated the cartoonist. Last week after gov. Cuomo had courageously recommended clemency for a thoroughly re formed convict who has served 18 years for a crime he might Well not have even committed the governor ran into protesters one of whom carried a Banner kill a cop get paroled by the one Hopes no Public official will think to Call that protester to congratulate him on his eloquence. His is a classic Case of St. Mario s paranoia commented Roger Ailes the Bright Republican Media consultant. I think he s quite a disturbed Man. It s beyond being thin skinned. He always has to invest a moral crusade to justify his out of control ambition to be president. We re All heathens and his Job on Earth is to save us and that s what he s doing one Hopes or. Cuomo will not now accuse or. Ailes of anti italian prejudice. If he does be will need simultaneously to account for the fact that or. Ailes is right now managing the re election Campaign of sen. Alfonte d Amato who is not a member of the mafia who supported president Reagan s visit to Pitburg but u not pro nazi. All these things need to get said nowadays if the Mere mention of the mafia As primarily an italian american organization induces the governor to Tell you a the mafia does t exist and anyway b it int primarily italian american. Granted it is easy to be called a racist. Such Black leaders As Benjamin Hooks and Jesse Jackson regularly say it of the president of the United states. At i trial a Tew weeks ago a cuckoo lawyer turned to we and asked darkly whether in using the term a White lie i bad intended anti Black insinuations. One can t deny that there is ethnic prejudice but it tends in America More and More to Manifest itself fraternally rather than inimical by. More italians As i have suggested tend to vote for the italian candidate than Irish or jewish or hispanic tend to vote against a candidate because of his italian ancestry. If or. Cuomo runs for president i shall Pray that he will be Defeated but in doing so i shall conceal from Providence the knowledge that he is an italian Ameri can. God s anti italian ism As we know has reached such limits that he had to go All the Way to Poland to find a Pope. C Una Vetrul pm synch of
