European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 11, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes sunday november 11,1990 . Rosentha Many feel Bennett quit drug Post too soon a a v.-. A a 1. I 1 1,a a a. A a a ,ve4h, weft 5tiu. Kind of bogged Down or. President. A. A Quot v it it v. w�?~u1p r. A a a. A a1 1 a v 1 the Brand new sailing vessel had just about cleared and for the journey across the Ocean when the skipper decided to get off. He told the Crew that the weather ahead looked pretty Good provisions had been Laid in and so they did t need him anymore. He jumped into a Rowboat and jul cd for Shore leaving a Bunch of startled sailors be Rind praying that the charts and weather predictions he iad drawn up himself were reliable. William j. Bennett has quit what he and everybody else involved in the War against drugs said was one of the most important jobs in the country. President Bush appointed him As the first drug policy director in March 1989. In september 1989 and january 1990 Bennett turned in the reports outlining the strategy for the War against drugs on his watch. They were Strong thoughtful reports calling for considerably More Money and Effort in every phase of the anti drug Battle a treatment interdiction education police action. Bennett did his Job Well. He fought for More Money and got it Laid out goals led the counterattack against the legals hrs who wanted to surrender to drugs rather than fight them. He provided the right leadership mixture of intellectual and bureaucratic combative Ness that the Job needed. Then barely a year after he had really got his hands on the Job he quit. The reason he told me was not fatigue and not any threat to his family. He said that when he took the Job he told the president he would keep it Long enough to get the anti drug Effort on a sound foundation and he Felt that Day had arrived. Funding went from $6 billion to $10 billion under the Bush administration there was a downtrend in the use of drugs and in most cities a not new York or Philadelphia a and the police were regaining control of the streets. Now it was a matter of management and somebody else could do the Job. People who have been in the anti drug Effort far longer than Bennett a for less Money and As much danger and fatigue a Are not melted by his argument. They feel he quit too soon. Drug use is less Chic and has indeed gone Down a bit a a healthy sign but reversible and one that started before Bennett a time in office. But 70 percent of criminal arrests still involve drug abusers. You can still buy crack on the streets of any big City and in almost every american City and in a lot of towns gunfire is still As loud As Ever and the blood still runs As full and red. The Good news that the War against drugs is making a Little headway becomes a sad irony when it is used As a rationale for quitting leadership of the struggle. Bennett did not regard his Job As an Ordinary bureaucratic assignment. He certainly did not present it that Way to the Public the press or to the talented people he recruited for his undermanned staff. Most of them had no idea he would quit until he did. Nobody demanded that Bennett devote his life to fighting the drug epidemic that has destroyed the lives of so Many thousands of Young americans a although it strikes me As a Fine Way to spend a lifetime. But the importance of the Post the very vigor of. His own rhetoric and demands for individual and Public commitment certainly All of these did suggest that he would at least stick it out until the end of Bush a first term. A somebody in the White House said that Bennett had run out of Gas. But Bush never gave Bennett a full tank. He never got the Cabinet status the Job needed nor the essential Power to demand specific action from the dozens of government did not even make sure they damned Well paid careful attention to Bennett. The Job called for a drug Czar. Bush decided a Duke would do. Just the same Bill Bennett knew the conditions of the Job before he took it. Well perhaps now Bennett will speak out candidly on what he has Learned a say about the presidential role. For example finding Sites for drug treatment centers remains a major National problem according to or. Mitchell Rosenthal head of Phoenix House the famous drug therapy organization. Bush could order the defense department to turn Over excess military bases for use As drug treatment centers for the 200,000 addicts who need Beds and attention. 1 Candor about things like that would be a Nice gift for Bennett to leave for the new skipper whoever that turns out to be. The new drug chief adj need it a that is if he plans to stick around for More than 19 months. C new York times David Broder election results Send mixed message for 92 the people who arc scanning the midterm election results for clues to a new Power balance Between president Bush and his democratic rivals arc looking at the wrong thing. The fascinating and often surprising results of tuesdays voting Send a mixed message about prospects for a successful democratic Challenge in 1992. What is not in doubt is a Brand new dynamic inside the gop pollster Dick Morris a strategist in Republican William welds come from be Nind Victory Over Democrat John h. Silb or in the Massachusetts governors race exaggerates Only slightly when he talks about the a rebirth of the Liberal few republicans uie that adjective a but the a a moderate or a a progressive Wing of the gop was strengthened immeasurably by the elections of new re it Public in governors to replace democrats n Ohio Michigan Vermont Minnesota and Massachusetts and by the men who took Over governors chairs being vacated by other republicans in Illinois and a most importantly a California. To oversimplify and exaggerate slightly if one generation of Republican politics began with the election of Ronald Rea Gan As California governor in 1966, another generation May Well have started with Pete Wilson a takeover of that office in 1990. The Challenge of Reagan tugged Richard Nixon to the right in the 1968 presidential Campaign. All during the time that Nixon and his successor Gerald Ford spent in the White House they kept an anxious Eye on the conservative Wing of his party fed by Reagan. George Bush also has governed with his glance fixed on the right knowing that the Reagan ites never really regarded him As one of their own and never really trusted him. But now the internal balance of the gop has shifted. The Southern base that Reagan welded to the gop and Bush exploited As his heir in 1988 has been weakened with the defeat of staunchly conservative republicans for the Florida and Texas governorships and their replacement by moderate Liberal democrats. At the same time forceful new republicans Many of them with Urban voting bases Are taking Over in California and the Northern tier states where Lincoln Teddy Roosevelt Eisenhower republicanism had its roots. All this is a far cry from Reagan so gov emment is the problem philosophy. And personally these men Are far from the Reagan Model. Wilson at some political risk supported Ford against Reagan Back in 1976 Weld resigned in protest from Reagan a Justice department when Reagan would not fire attorney general Edwin Meese. On the most sensitive platform Issue facing Bush in 1992 a whether to renew or soften the Gopas strict antiabortion stand a Wilson Illinois Jim Edgar and Weld will weigh in heavily on the abort Ion rights Side. George Voino Vich and John Engler Gove mors elect in Ohio and Michigan Are anti abortion but the California Illinois and Massachusetts delegations will make the debate far More spirited than it was at the last three conventions. But the conservatives have powerful arguments of their own to use with Bush As e repositions himself for 1992. On two fundamental issues a taxes and affirmative action a they can credibly assert that the voters endorsed their views. The tax revolt was probably the single most pervasive theme in the necessarily muddled mid Terrp voting causing problems for candidates and parties tied to National or state tax hikes. Noting the defeat of sen. Rudy Boschwitz r-minn., one of the few incumbents in contested races to support the Bush endorsed budget agreement and the astonishing hair breadth escape of sen Bill Bradley . Caught in a tax revolt against democratic gov. James j. Florio Burton Yale Pines of the conservative heritage foundation said a Bush has to look at Boschwitz and Bradley and see a warning for 1992. Its like a Light heart attack for a Young Man. It tells you to change your Way of Veteran democratic strategist Robert s. Strauss who supported the Bush approved budget Summit agreement and tax ikes acknowledged that the election showed that the american people a still think they can have the things they want without paying taxes for pressure on Bush to go Back to his earlier anti tax stance is bound to grow. C Washington Post writers group
