European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 04, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes columns David s. Broder press must Lead in holding politicians accountable a word of warning to regular readers of this column. There s a subject on which i intend to become a Crank. No one can go to Eastern Europe in this season of its liberation As i have just done and come Home uninspired by the Power of democracy As a Universal Ideal. It would be grotesque at such a moment to watch without protest the strangulation or distortion of democracy in the United states which Symbol i is successful and sustained self government to so much of the world. Rather As 1989 was a year of Victory for Freedom in the world each of us must do what we can to assure that 1990 is a year of renewal for democracy Here at Home. It is time for those of us in the world s freest press to become activists not on behalf of a particular party or politician but on behalf of the process of self government. It is time to expose the threats to that process and support the efforts to get rid of them. We cannot allow the 1990 elections to be another exercise in Public disillusionment and political cynicism. Three elements Are crucial and in each the press has a significant role to play. The first is improving the Quality of candidates and encouraging the spread of political Competition. It is already late to be recruiting for the 1990 contest but not too late for the parties to ascertain and news organizations to publicize where gaps exist on the1990 ballots. Every one of those gaps that can be filled by Able people before the filing deadline is a Victory for democracy. As journalists we need to acknowledge that our vigor in exposing politicians shortcomings has mad Many talented men and women wary of seeking and holding Public office. We should not relax our Vig Ilance but we should be sure that we balance the books by saluting those who strengthen the nation by serving in elective office. Or simply by challenging the current officeholders vigorously enough a election time that they Are forced to explain and defend their records. Second we have to help bring the financing of campaigns Back into the hands of the people who Are represented rather than letting it continue to be con trolled and manipulated by those seeking special treat ment from government. We do not have to wait for another scandal to realize that the Purchase of Access to elected officials through Large scale fund raising endangers representative government and Breeds justifiable Public distrust. One Way of getting Campaign finance Back into the hands of the people is through a tax form checkoff system with reasonable limits on Campaign spending As we already do in presidential campaigns. Another is to require that candidates raise their funds in Small sums in the jurisdictions they represent. A third is to Challenge and empower political parties to raise the Tom Wicker Money their nominees need. The Best mix of methods is debatable. But the need to clean up the present system s corruption is so Clear to so Many of the politicians themselves that this must be the year for action. Finally the Campaign dialogue must be rescued from the electronic demagoguery favored by too Many hired gun political consultants. Campaigning must be reconnected to governmental disc Sions voters really care about. The Public is sick and tired of being assaulted for weeks before election Day with horrifying recitals of the opposing candidate s supposed record on some Issue which magically disappears once votes have been counted. That s Fine for the consultants who col Lect their fees and go off to another Campaign in another state. But voters Are cheated of their right to hear their own concerns discussed and have their own views registered. This is the Issue on which the press must take Pri Mary responsibility. Consultants and their client plainly Are not going to clean up their own act As Long As the political marketplace rewards such tactics with Success. Legal restrictions arc anathema to those of us who fear governmental regulation of political speech. So the press will have to step Forward to police the Campaign process very much As we try to catch cheat ing and chicanery in government. That Means that we must be far More assertive than in the past on the Public s right to hear its con Cerns discussed by the candidates in ads debates and speeches and far More conscientious in report ing those discussions when they take place. We have to help reconnect politics and government what Hap pens in the Campaign and what happens afterwards in Public policy if we Are going to have accountability by our elected officials and genuine democracy in this country. In the world of 1990, anything less is unacceptable. Washington poll writer group . Should take lesson from the soviet Union seers and prognosticators of All varieties Are taking Loose advantage of the Calendar to proclaim that a new decade is ushering in a new world that will follow upon the deflation of communist pretensions and the end of the soviet Empire. I decline to join in these Hosanna on two grounds the first minor and person Al. To me the new decade will not begin any More than some new dec Ade is bom every new year until Jan. I 1991 the decade of the nineties. That decade will begin not with a Zero 1990 but with a 1 1991 and continue not through 1999 but through its 10th year 2000. The new Sonners who defy this arithmetical logic also run ahead of themselves in proclaiming a new we face in fact a changed and not a new world and in some ways it s More nearly an old world predating the cold War that has come to an end. The German problem is certainly no new though it now arises in a different context. The conflicts of Eastern Europe once the confining cloak of communist Rule has been thrown off May Well be re awakened in All their ancient malign ties. Mikhail Gorbachev s struggle with the dissident republics of his forcefully built Empire is a magnification of a problem that has plagued the .s.r. Almost from its inception. And As has always been the Case even when cold War hostilities obscured it the nations economies and trading positions will be the surest determinants of their Power. Admittedly in world affairs there s not much difference in changed and new except when the latter connotes something never before seen such As men walking on the Moon. There arc few such developments. If however new is taken to mean something different from what was perceived a year or 10 years or a Quarter Century ago then at least two such new developments strike me As note worthy. One of these is the removal of the threat if there Ever was one of the soviet invasion of Western Europe. The West s perception of such a threat since the late 40s, has been a primary per haps the primary Force in Western policy. It has been responsible among other things for nato and the billions of Dol Lars . Taxpayers have poured into the defense of Western Europe every year for nearly a half Century. The idea of a War in Europe has shaped the training of . Military forces to their detriment in Vietnam and even some critics say in the recent inva Sion of Panama. Deterring the soviet Union from such an invasion has been an important rationale for the . Nuclear Arsenal. If the soviets have relinquished their control in East Germany Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe however it can hardly be any longer imagined that they plan to lunge across Germany and France to the English Channel. Some of us have argued that at least since Stalin s Day there was no realistic likelihood of such an attempt one reason was the Likely unreliability of Warsaw pact forces which now has been demonstrated. Thus the exposure of the soviet threat to Western Europe As a paper Tiger if that exposure is accepted Liber ates the West from a powerful and prevailing policy imperative. It follows also from the acquiescence of Moscow in the removal of communist control in Eastern Europe that the soviets Are not eager if they Ever were to sustain a satellite nation half a world away in Central America much less to build it into a military threat tothe United slates or the Western Hemi , it was that ultimate threat that the Reagan administration fell Back upon to justify its recruiting arming a financing and control of the so called con tras As a Force with which to overthrow the sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Now after Gorbachev s Retreat from Eastern Europe it would take a highly charged imagination indeed to suppose that tie intends to sustain a major soviet outpost and military base in Centra America. President Bush certainly can be under no such has made it Clear will not permit Nicaragua to molest it neighbors. Why not draw the lesson of Eastern Europe then and leave the sandinista to the nicaraguan people or would that be too new a world for a United states still Bent As in Panama and us always on dominating its so called Back Yard new York times
