European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 18, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns the stars and stripes sunday october 1b, 1987 William f. Buckley two questions raised by Robertson s candidacy a lot of extracurricular fun has been had at the expense of the Rev. Pat Robertson. Extracurricular because those who plead a special License to expose and slaver Over his personal past use As an Eft cutt for doing so that he is after All a candidate for the presidency and for that reason liable to full biographical Dis closure. They say this while also saying hat he has no greater Chance of being nominated than Jesse Jackson. Indeed there is the Odd sense in which Robertson is the republicans Jesse Jackson now there Are iwo questions Here. The first was nicely launched by columnist Murray pc Melon who wrote with his customary Charm and wit that the Washington Post was in a great hurry to Complete its War against Robert boric to punish him for his indifference to the sacred american institution of privacy so that it could err Back 10 its Public examination of just when pal Robertson mar ried and just when his first child was bom. The conventional difference be tween the two Dales we Are heavily re minded is nine months plus the differ ence in the Case of the Robertsons ends up being something on the order of 10 weeks. When this news was released Robertson s reply was devastating in its can Dor and plausibility. He said that at the Lime his child was conceived. Put Robertson s life was devoted to wine women and  it was t until several years later that he fell the a flatus that now moves him and became a preaching and practising Christian. Moreover. Whether he had or had not become a Christian for so Long As there is any slight flavor of disdain or even opprobrium fell against people who were conceived out of Wedlock in fact there is hardly any it harms no one and conceivably protects against harassment of the child to re Jigger the marriage Date changing it the required number of months. That is All thai Robertson did and in is inconceivable that this would give offence to fair minded people which to reach for a Loose figure would mean of maybe 60 percent of americans. On the second question the min ister or if one accepts the formality the sex minister running for president there is much to say and think about. Bul whatever one s conclusions they should not be influenced by the knowledge that Martin Gottlieb when a Young Man. Robertson As he put in sowed his wild Oats. And or course Here arc no historical grounds car sup posing that the american people will flatly exclude from the White House any one who Ever fornicate. The Judco Christian ethical system is based on the notion of regeneration. If Rome could wait All those years for Augustine to shape up making him then the Bishop or Hippo and accepting him As the most influential Church father since St. Paul who had his own regeneration presumably the United Stales could survive a transgression of the flesh 33 years old. No the problems that face Pat Robertson will not have to do with the ques Tion or his activity As a Young Man. They do have to do Wilh his formal occupation As a minister never mind thai tic has renounced that calling having recently been Laici Zed As the catholics would put in. Bui the Lai citation of pal Robertson is not quite the same sort of thing we associate with others who Lay aside holy or Ders. Bill Moyers was one a minister and so was John Mclaughlin and Gary Hart was a theologian. None of them is thought of As remaining in fact primarily a minister of god. But Pat Robertson is. Now that is by no Means a categorically disabling association bul of course Public perceptions change. There has never been a minister or an sex min ister who served As president of the United Stales. This had to do less with Hostil Ity to religion than with the Assumption that ministers Are primarily men of cod and the office of the president is associated not with the City of god hut with the City of Man. Ministers were on the whole much More highly regarded than they Are today Back when they were never thought to be tempted by secular office. Up until 1899, no one had Ever served As president of Yale University who was t an ordained minister. But just As the ordained minister loses his special identification with an other calling we have two running for president Jesse Jackson in the demo cratic party Robertson in the Republican party. Moreover Robertson s pro Gram As lightly surveyed Al this end seeks an America Noi different in any important respect from the America Over which every president up through travelling Salesman Dwight Eisenhower presided. Non denominational prayer not the stuff of which nightmares were made Back Hen. Why it is otherwise now save in special circumstances homosexuals encouraged to return to the closet c Umaru pub conservatives w/7/ never forgive defeat of Bork the Best argument for confirming Robert Bork is simple if he s Defeated the Republican right will never gel Over it. Sen. Jake Cam Rulah promises. I be never been so mad in my life he says. If Bork loses in the full Senate there will never be a Liberal judge confirmed by the Senate As Long As i am Here. The whole Damn Senate will be lied up in the Early 1950s, a former communist named Whitaker Chambers accused a stale department official named Alger Hiss of being a communist in his youth. The Liberal Community disparaged Chambers. Then Hiss was found guilty in court of misrepresenting Evi Dence. Twenty years later conservative polemicist were still writing about Hiss and Chambers weekly. Nobody knows Why. Certain people just never forget certain things. This Bork thing feels like that. All the elements Are there for perpetual resentment we Wiz robbed. Reagan won election big twice openly staling his views on judicial matters. And then these political lilliputian in the Senate come along and act As if those elections never happened. We Wiz smeared. Some of the stuff they said about bark was t even me we lost with our Best. De Mcnese they confirm for real right wingers to see the likes of Robert Bork being beaten by a Campaign which they see Ted Kennedy leading Well it is to sputter. Babe Ruth was once struck out by a woman. True the game was softball not baseball and she was pitch ing from closer than he was used 10 bul no analogy can precisely capture the humiliation and anger people like Garn Are feeling now. Nothing Quiric this bad has Ever happened to anybody. Maybe if the woman Pitcher had just come Back from the dead. No. Maybe if Ruth had spent the last 20 years patiently explaining that women can t pitch even under handed just As the conservative movement has de voted 25 percent of its resources for iwo decades to explaining Ted Kennedy s intellectual and ideological limitations. No. Maybe if. No. There is simply no possible analogy. Something the conservatives know in their Bones must have been wrong with the process. They will spend the next several decades demonstrating that. They May have lost the game bul they will win the Recap. The rewrite of history has already stand. The Bork confirmation hearings which first time around were dignified and restrained to the Point of Boring have this time around become ugly exhibitions of emotional ism and innuendo. Now Reagan says the Bork Battle is about the Independence of our  he s mad because it turns out the Senate is As interested in judicial philosophy As he is. The hypocrisy has gone nuclear. The fallout Wilt Poison future debates. The Republican right is so con Vinced that judge Bork was maligned unfairly and decisively thai some of its members May feel justified in doing just about anything in future Battles. When their tactics arc criticized they will respond by charging that the people who criticize them never raised a Peep when Ted Kennedy was inventing his own Robert Bork even though there have been plenty of peeps from both left and right. Maybe All the future acrimony can be avoided if somebody simply explains to the bark supporters Why he is being Defeated. His real problem after All is thai the South has changed. Back in the old one party Days the democrats did t need the support of Blacks now they do. So the problem is that the republicans have risen. That fact ought 10 make the  feel bet Ter q Coine sur kick