European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 9, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes monday february. 1967 columns Carl Rowan Meese simply ignores lows he does t like this country Lias had a remarkable assortment of attorney general ranging from he Brilliant to mediocre political Hacks from men of unquestionable rectitude 10 the blatantly criminal from the leftist liberalism of a Ramsey Clark in Lyndon Johnson s Laic tenure to the commie scare merchant a. Mitchell Palmer of the Wilson administration. But surely no attorney general has brought to the office or America s lop Lawman a stranger and More worrisome set of ideas and ideologies about the relationship of a citizen to this country s Constitution and i he statutes enacted by Congress than the cur rent head of he Justice department Edwin a Csc Iii. In his Job As a top adviser to president Reagan and now As attorney general me Csc has pushed the philosophy that he Way to Deal with environmental voting rights and other taws that he does not like is limply not to enforce them. Or when it seemed politically advantageous to court while males during the presidential Campaign he made it the role of the Justice department to go into the court to thwart efforts to give equal Job opportunities to women Blacks and hispanic through after alive action programs. Meuse got his Tongue in a trap recently by Declar ing that decisions by the . Supreme court Are not the Law of the land suggesting that each of us in our greed bigotry religious passion or whatever can make our own interpretation of the Constitution. He backed away from that with some mealy mouthed gobbledygook that most americans Don yet understand. Meese the former prosecutor with the fabled Law and order mentality came up with o curious version of crime fighting when the arms to loan Money to the con Raa scandal broke. He went on nationwide television to make a preemptive disclosure that it. Col. Oliver North and others in the while House May have diverted �10 million to $30million from arms sales to Iran to the arming of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The attorney general assured us that neither the president the vice president assorted Cabinet members nor he had any knowledge of these apparently criminal diversions of funds. Then having declared Reagan Bush himself and others inno he pledged an investigation to determine who was an extraordinary gambit Tor a Law Man who himself May turn out to be neck deep in the Iran contras scandal. Storne. Sidney Poitier in the heal of the night is beginning to talk like a Corn Pone collector of criminals. Maybe it s just a desperate Effort to get editorial writers an columnists to focus on something other than Iran scam. But who can ignore the fad that he is threatening to ask the Reagan supreme court to now Mcnese who even physically looks like s tobacco Road Deputy sheriff who chases is overturn he 1966 Miranda decision just when we be had a zillion to shows a custom us to a policeman Reading a suspect his rights Meese wants to abandon that Rule out of his belief that telling a suspect that he has Constitution Al protections against self incrimination and does t have o answer cops questions Only helps he it seems not to Dawn on me Csc that if North and adm. John Poindexter can invoke the fifth Amend Mentlo protect themselves and perhaps Mcnese and president Reagan some High school dropout ought to have the right to keep quiet and talk to a lawyer rather than have the police browbeat him into a confession of things he May never have done. What Meese refuses to accept is the reality that Reagan s indicted labor Secretary Raymond j. Do Novan and the assorted people in the environmental Protection Agency the defense department and elsewhere who Nave been accused of crimes May not need a Miranda Rule. They know their constitutional rights. So do the Kingpins of organized crime and the thieves on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms of America these people know thai mum s the word and that Legal mouthpieces do the la in ing and Spring them to do their things Over and Over again. It is the Little Guy he poor uneducated first Tims offender that Miranda protects Meese figures we can get a lot of confessions out of Little Guys if no cop tells them hey have a right to remain silent and talk to a lawyer. A Gulli ble Public eager Tor Law and order believes this. But in the absence of Miranda police coercion will return. Poor uneducated people will say a lot of dumb things that prosecutors desperate for convictions will construe to be powerful circumstantial evidence. Miranda gone every prosecutor in the land will have a better Chance of making his record look Good by sending some talkative and often innocent Tittle Guy up the River. There is a Way to preserve the Constitution protect the vitality of Laws passed by Congress and guard the rights of the most vulnerable of Ameri cans to a fair trial. That Way is to Clamp Down on Edwin Meese Iii the ideologue who postures As the Symbol of Justice in this land. Nov await cd Bynde Aie Jody Powell Affer 5 years it s time to turn to other things there is As the Good Book says a time and a season Tor Ell things. For this column writer and occasional commen Tator the Lime has come to do something different i pc signed on to run a Washington Public relations inn and thai meant this is my last column for the los Angeles times Syndicate. As with most major changes in life anticipation of what lies ahead is tinged with regret for what must be left behind. For me though television has been great fun and certainly pays Well in is the writing that i shall miss. When i began this column almost exactly live years ago i wrote that i looked Forward to walking mile in the shoes of journalists of whom i had often been More than mildly critical. I expected i said la learn a lot in the process. I Nave. And it has made me a Good bit More understanding of the difficulties involved in sifting out the truth from the welter of information Moa neither altogether True nor altogether false that circulates through Washington. The experience has also Given me an Opportunity to know and understand and even Admire individuals whose politic and philosophies differ markedly from my own. Some of that lakes place in poli tics anyway but it is usually at More of an Arm s length and at least in my experience Over a much longer Lime. More importantly the writing has provided the time and the motivation to think More carefully and i Hope More clearly about the issues of our Day and time about who i am and what i believe. That is a rare and precious Opportunity for any person and not usually available to someone who embarks upon a career in politics and Public affairs. If in comes at All it is usually at the end. Certainly my life until 1981 had offered Lilette time Ford Tep personal reflection. And if the truth be known the value was not confined to nutters of Public policy. The thinking and writing about family and friends the value of life s commonplace things also helped me to understand who i was and what was truly important. In the end though in was that More Active perhaps less reflective life that called me Back. When it came right Down to it i concluded that i was Noi Cut out to be an observer. As stimulating and rewarding As the past five years have been my role in life was to ask questions rather than answer them to help write the speech rather than to write about it to help make the decision a incr than to Analyse it if that sounds in any Way Den igniting of the role of observer reporter and commentator it is not meant to. If anything my experience has left me wit increased appreciation for the difficulty of those jobs and enhanced respect for those who do them with intelligence an integrity. So that s about it. This column will run Shorter than most but farewells ought to be that Way. There s not much else Loay except goodbye and thank you 10 the Good people at the Syndi Cate who edited and sold my column to the editors who bought in to those of you who wrote to say you liked it and even to those who did t but look the time to try to Leach me the error of my ways. It s been great fun and i shall miss you far More than you will miss me. When next you hear from me. 1 will be pleading the Case for some interest or cause. What i say should be taken with a Grain of Salt. But that is the Case for any pronouncement about Public policy whether in comes from president or preacher or Public relations Man or journalist. That open and unrestrained combat of ideas Ana arguments is what make our democratic political system work what makes in so exciting and ultimately appealing to some of us. It is what has finally called me Back Home. Loa Anselm Timss up Macaw
