European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 11, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 Camri Iris the stars and stripes thursday june 11,1987 William Buckley opulent lifestyle Bakker s greatest offence other people s embarrassments can be fun particularly when big mouthed people Are caught up i hypocrisy. But the awful mess surrounding the Rev. If that is what we still Call him Jim Bakker is a mess we revel in at our own risk. It is one thing for a Man who wants to be president to scorn society s mores you gently but firmly remove the White House from his dream Garden. It is something else for a society in enjoying the exposure of a greedy hypocrite to lose sight of the relevant distinction to find its amusement in disparaging not the sinner but in disparaging the very idea that he sinned. Sinned what s that Bob Hope is a lovable Man who however would find humor one supposes in Auschwitz provided Auschwitz jokes played in Las vegas. On his television special last month Bob Hope was entertaining the troops Down at Pope air Force base in North Carolina and one of his lines was that Jim Bakker said to his Girlfriend now i Lay me Down to sleep. But first things howls from the boys. And on David let Terman s program comedian Don Rickles dismisses not listen carefully what Jim Bakker did but what Jim Bakker preached. And the whole thing becomes explicated by columnist Sandy Grady. He gives us a Brief autobiographical View of his lire which features a sex scandal Athis Church in Charlotte n.c., when Grady was 10 years old resulting As he puts it with rakish Devil May care in his Drift into the evil ways of secular human and he goes on it is socially fashionable not to know what a secular humanist is but not wholly irresponsible intellectually to founder in trying to de Fine it. Actually i m still not sure what a humanist is of the holy Brawl Between brother Falwell and brother Bakker will be a generation of Little secular human in introducing not alone the disgusting be Havior of Bakker but the controversy with Jerry fal Well Grady brings up a Point entirely removed from the principal Point which is the behaviour of Jim Bak Ker. Whether it was necessary for Falwell to recite in such detail the specifications of his charges against Bakker we cannot know. It May be that he was influenced by lawyers who counselled him to be specific in order to discourage litigation. Or it May be that he Felt that Only by being specific could he arrest the at Tention of those followers of Jim Bakker who for Rea sons of loyalty have been reluctant to believe that their television minister was a Man of such moral Ellen Goodman sloth. Falwell after All begins by believing that televised evangelism is Worth saving and that therefore it must excrete the Man who has Given it a name so bad that not the preacher s sins but the preacher s preachings become the object of jokes on Bob Hope s program and of condescension by a syndicated columnist. Bak Ker it is stipulated committed adultery. And it is charged made homosexual advances not once but several times. Those sins of the flesh however conspicuous should be viewed As lawyers View attractive nuisances that isto say they get most of the attention because they attract such attention though the greater sins Are those of Bakker s manner of living. It is one thing at the witching hour to fall into the coils of lust quite something else to live As Bakker and his wife lived begging dollars from the poor and using them to finance a lifestyle that would Embarrass a rolling Stone. For Bakker to pronounce grandly that god has forgiven him leaves insufficient space to describe whatsit is that Bakker proposes to do to atone. There is Only one Way for the sinner to go in such circumstances. Walter Jenkins who disappeared from the White House into anonymity after his affair showed us the Way. As did Spiro Agnew. Bakker wants to hang in there flaunting god s forgiveness while flouting god t prescription repent and sin no More. What much of America finds itself doing is rebuking the Laws of god for the transgressions of god s Crea Tures. Really it should be otherwise one would think. Christ taught a hatred of hypocrisy of deception of greed. Was there Ever a moment when such strictures As taught by Christ were More relevant than when one observes such As Jim Bakker there is not much that he can do to cause Bob Hope Don Rickles and Sand Grady to weigh what they say More carefully but the Public auction of his acquired goods included one notes an air conditioned Doghouse. He should first remove the air conditioning and then inhabit it. Universal peas Syndicate Good Gray new York times has gone too far Ever since a team of reporters staked out Gary Hart s Home narrowing the parameters of privacy for a presiden tial candidate Many have asked whether the press went too far. If not then where exactly was too far were we headed in its direction what would it look like when we got there Well i am Here to report that i have seen too it does t look like the National enquirer photo of Donna Rice on Gary Han s Lap. It looks like a care fully phrased letter from the new York times the Good Gray times. The times formally asked every presidential candidate for information. This is not the Type of information we routinely request preparing profiles wrote the times Washington editor Craig Whitney. However the presidency is a unique office and presidential candidates Are inevitably and we believe rightly asked to provide the Public with Exten Sive information about the times letter went on to ask the routine stuff school transcripts employ ment records military history income tax returns. The usual. They went further to lazily ask the candidates to help with their footwork deliver the names of close friends and associates advisers and fund raisers. But Down in the list was a request for a waiver of privacy rights that would allow the paper to Al any scrap of information True or false lurking in the unevaluated investigative files pre pared by the Fri or other Law enforce ment agencies. And just a bit further Down was an open ended request for medical records indicating treatment for mental or physical disabilities and permission to discuss medical history with your this is what too far looks like. A reporter for that matter any Citi zen has the right to question a Candi Date about anything. I was not the Only one who squirmed when the Washington Post s Paul Taylor asked Gary Hart have you every committed adultery but Taylor had the right to ask and Hart the right to say i do not have to answer that we can ask a candidate whether he s been treated for mental or physical illness. We can pursue a Lead that goes As far As Thomas Eagleton s Shock treatments. But that s a far cry from asking every candidate to turn Over medical records that Range from the podiatrist to the psychiatrist. It s a far cry from asking him to cede the confidential relationship be tween patient and physician. Howard Simons curator of the Nieman foundation and former Man aging editor of the Washington Post has he says always had the View that presidential candidates have no private life at All. None. yet even he walked at this one what they Are doing is a fish ing expedition. Just take All your records from history and give them to us. Just give me a free License to fish in your Pond. They re asking him to waive his rights so that a doctor will break the pledge of confidentiality. Better they should ask about a former journalist in the candidate pack sen. Paul Simon d-111., is also troubled by the request let s say some body had a social disease. I m not at All sure that the american Public is entitled to know Simon hastened to add that he s never had a social disease and his need to say that illustrates the prob Lem. Anybody who in t open for fishing can be accused of having something to even in an Era when we know every thing about the condition of the presi Dent s Colon does a candidate have to turn Over the Complete history of Hemor rho ids and herpes the veritable times might answer if Craig Whitney had chosen to return my phone Calls that they would be Ever so discreet. They would responsibly separate the wheat from the chaff or the relevant from the irrelevant. But is this How the balance has shifted is the candidate now supposed to simply turn Over the raw data of his entire life waiving his rights along the Way does the press now completely de Termine what should be revealed and what protected while asking that a candidate deliver the last vestiges of privacy the times arrogantly Felt no obligation to disclose their own guidelines to say How they would use what they Learned. The letter simply closed with the line we would appreciate receiving All this mate rial As soon As in the midst of the Gary Hart Story the times Bill Saline worried that news hounds were going to ask questions about things like impotence. Paul Taylor responded indignantly Don t they think that political reporters know bet Ter now it appears the times reporters won t have to ask such embarrassing questions. They can read All about it in the medical records. I May not be Able to perfectly define the invasion of privacy in presidential politics. But 1 know it when i Sec it. Thesis it. Washington Pott writ an group
