European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 10, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes Friday june 10,1988 columns James j. Kilpatrick problem with aids not As big As advertised now and then some hard questions need to be asked even Al the risk of seeming cold carted and the Lime is at hand to ask a hard question about aids. This is the question what s the big dea7 for the life of me i cannot understand Why the country has gone ape Over the subject of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. We Are told that the disease is epidemic which emphatically it is not. We Are supposed to be moved by the tragedy raids which is to put a Good word to a very poor use. We arc urged to appropriate s3 billion in 1990 toward finding a cure which is a vast Deal of the taxpayers Money for the Benefit of a Liny minority of the population last week the president s Foj Mcm bar commission on aids filed a 269-Page report containing nearly 600 recommendations for coping with this purported  everyone is expected to get in on the act inc Federal government the slate governments the Public schools. Laws should be passed by the Bushel. This epidemic has infected perhaps 1 .5 million americans in a population of 241 million with the human immunodeficiency virus Iii. The on s chairman retired adm. James d. Walkins wants the president to declare a nations health emerged  coinciding with the commission s re port a group of Iso senior Public health officials met Al  a. Out of their conference came some figures that arc intended to galvanize us into frantic reaction. By the end of 1993, we arc told Al least 450,000 americans will have been diagnosed As Active victims of aids. In that year alone 100,000 new cases will be reported let us get this thing in perspective. The world has known True epidemics from time to time. In the 1300s, the bubonic plague killed a fourth of the population of Europe. A Hundred years ago epidemic diphtheria claimed a Terri ble loll. Mankind has experienced epidemics of cholera smallpox typhoid lever. Matched against these outbreaks aids in the United states dwindles to insignificance. Look Al inc record in the seven years of 1981-87, precisely 37,481 eases of aids were officially reported. That is All. Roughly 13,000 of these were new cases reported in 1986. Let us assume that All of these cases Are terminal cases. Perspective in 1985, More than 19 million americans were suffering from heart conditions 29 million from significantly High blood pressure 30 million from serious arthritis. In 1986 physicians reported 930,000 new cases of cancer to 1985, roughly 771,000 persons died of heart disease 462,000 of cancer and 46,000 in automobile accidents. What the big Deal about aids the presidents commission urged that aids victims be treated with compassion and  for the 497 children under the age of 13, the innocent inheritors of his yes we truly can feel compassion. The poor kids but i do not comprehend Why special com passion and undemanding should be extended to most of the others face it this disease overwhelmingly is a disease that afflicts two classes drug addicts and homosexual men. The addicts gel it from infected Needles. The homosexual men get ii through anal Intercourse with Many sexual partners. My thought is that aids victims deserve about inc same compassion that society extends to those who smoke them selves to death or drink themselves to death which is to say a fairly modest degree of compassion. Let us Reserve our deepest grief for victims of the Drunken Driver or for those who die of genetic diseases. Yes death is an occasion for to Trow but not ail deaths Are tragic deaths. Tragedy involves a moral dimension in which greatness and weakness Are inter mingled on d path to ruin. Aids is Noth ing of the sort. It is entirely appropriate that aids victims be protected in their civil rights. It is outrageous that Little children known to be carrying the virus should be kept from schoolroom. They poise no threat in anyone. But it is also entirely appropriate As the commission recommended that inc states nuke it a crime for persons knowingly to engage in sexual conduct Likely to transmit the a ids virus. I would treat aids for what it is a disease that mortally afflicts a Liny fraction of the population whose wilful behaviour results in inc infection. The Fel Low who Dies of sodomy is no More Spe Cial than the fellow who Dies of two packs of cigarettes a Day. Let us apportion our ears and our tax dollars with some sense of proportion univ of i Preil George will maybe if does f Maffer who succeeds Reagan los Angeles the Vox Populis has had its say in the nominal Ion process and has said with a Conti nent wide sigh approximately this of Well then All right Well Settle for you  republicans lunch done what parties dream of doing. They have decorous by nominated the consensus Choice of mom party leaders in a context of peace and Prosperity. Democrats have done precisely what recent history warns against they have nominated a North Eastern Liberal. They have done this in spite of the fact that no Northern Liberal Democrat other than Franklin Roose Voll has Ever received a popular vote majority. Furthermore in a dismal Era for democrats they have loss four of the last five elections largely because they Are weak in the South and West their strongest Candi Date Wai a southerner perceived As slightly conserva Tive Jimmy Carter in 1976. Yet George Bush is decidedly the underdog. A Small part of the explanation is that his Campaign has been stuttering since he Defeated Bob Dole. Many dismayed republicans feel As George s. Kaufman fell toward a bad Bridge partner i know you Learned the game this afternoon but what time this afternoon however it is hardly news that Bush is a better Candi Date for appointive than elective office. Stephen Hess notes at least three 20lh-Cenlury presidents have not been instinctive politicians. Wil Liam Howard tall at heart was a judge Herbert Hoo ver a Technocrat Richard Nixon a Secretary of  Hacsi rightly excludes Dwight Eisenhower from that group because Eisenhower held essentially political offices in Washington in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a Brilliant bureaucratic politician who in War was a Polit ical organizer of warriors. Hess rightly regards Nixon As not a natural politician. One of the melancholy aspects of Nixon s life is that he never enjoyed the rituals or was at Case with the manners and mores of his profession. Bush is not As uncomfortable As Nixon was but the sight and worse the sound of Bush campaigning makes Many people uncomfortable. In the last 12 elections inc republicans twice and Only the republicans have nominated candidates who had never held elective office Willkie. Eisenhower. Dush has one foot in that category not having won an election on his own since 1968. Clearly the Bush Campaign s premise is that Bush should not count on convincing the Public to Vole for him rather he should frighten the Public into voting against Michael Dukakis. Bush wants to  Mot with a. To we. Never a to wet Dukakis. A Story probably apocryphal but True enough is told about an elderly woman who in 1964 told an inquiring reporter that she intended to vote against Barry Good Walcer because he s the Guy who s going to get rid of to the reporter assured her that she was mistaken that it was Tva the Tennessee Valley authority Goldwater opposed. But the woman s resolve against Good Walcer did not weaken. Well i m not taking any  Ever since the democrats demonized Gold Alcor republicans have gleefully done the same to democrats. George Mcgovern was acid amnesty and Abor  Carter was Southern Fried  today Bush s California Campaign chairman gov. George Deukmejian who May after All be auditioning for the role of running mate sounds very vice presidential when he says Dukakis is Waller Mondale on taxes Ted Kennedy on crime. Tip o Neill on spending and Mcgovern on foreign policy since the mcgovern1te Ascendancy in their party democrats have been vulnerable to three indict ments they have been charged with being culturally extreme on social issues reckless spenders in Domestic policy and unrealistic regarding National Security needs and the soviet threat however regarding social issues Dukakis seems to understand the usefulness of having some critics like the homosexual rights groups that have denounced him for saying that Foster children Are probably Buller off when in the care of heterosexual parents. Regarding spending in will be entertaining 19 Bear a representative of the Reagan Bush administration the All time deficit spender in the history of the universe keep a straight face while contrasting Republican Recti tude with Dukakis supposedly dangerous ways. Regarding National Security Dukakis May never have met a weapons system he liked. Bui even his Likely defense budget would be Way too big if president Reagan is right about the cold War being Over Doorba Chov being a Friend and the soviet Union having mellowed. F Reagan is right the stakes of american politics arc suddenly much lower than they were and it matter less who wins elections. If Reagan is wrong but Bush thinks As Reagan does the Choice Between Bush and Dukakis does not matter All that much