European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 15, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Friday March 15, 1991 a the stars and stripes. A Page 13 commentary Andrew Rosentha president reverts to his mister Rogers image everyone is talking about George Bush a new world Aura. A a your president is a Tough Guy a Michel Ricard the French prime minister raved last weekend about the Star of the International Alliance. A the persian Gulf War Lent him new strength and presence said Many who saw Bush a address to Congress last week. A it was a wonderful speech a a conceded. Geoffrey Garin a democratic consultant. After two years of an incremental Small bore approach would not Bush want to keep flying on the magic carpet of majesty not so far. He gave up John Wayne and went Back to mister Rogers zipping off to an Arlington va., Grade school monday to count quarters and dimes with fourth graders. Soon it s off to Cleveland for a Campaign style visit to a children a clinic. But people who May be disappointed that the kiwanis. Club president has popped right Back up done to understand two things. This president prefers things Small bore. And it works. Even if he could have kept the grandeur going. Bush did not need to. Person to person politics is what got the less than telegenic president elected and he is not about to give it up now. And right now his advisers say everything he is doing plays even better because it is silhouetted against the backdrop of the Gulf. In the 1988 presidential Campaign Bush was satirized As out of place and out of touch for asking teen age drug addicts at a Halfway House in Newark a did you say a the Heck with it i done to need this darn things did you go through a withdrawal thing a Republican strategists gloomily wondered it their candidate needed a course in remedial americana. And last year Bush slipped off television screens and front pages with tiny local events and meandering trips that risked trivializing the presidency. After the budget fiasco things got so bad that his aides said with Black humor that maybe they needed an International crisis to restore the presidents image. Now having proved to the world that George will he could command a powerful International War machine. Bush simply looked Grandfather Rev and accessible when he went to the Barcroft elementary school in Arlington and asked Anthony i Lender son a Pupil who doubted that he really was the president a do you think i m a pretending Guy a. Rummaging through his pockets. Bush said helplessly a How can i prove ? i Don t have any then he found his Wallet and snapped his Texas Drivers License triumphantly onto the table. V the president rummaged again. Quot this is a picture of my grandson playing he found a credit card in Humble Green. A will you accept american express a he scene was regarded As so lovable that it was replayed on the local and National evening news. Anthony turned up tuesday morning on the a a today show where he told Bryant Gumbel that he had had reason to be suspicious a Guy in tights and a Beard showed up at the school last week and passed himself off As Leonardo a Vinci still around the edges Loose threads Are already pulling. Even Bush is showing a Little of the partisan Edge that has crept through in past political crises. On monday he seemed to suggest that lawmakers could prove their patriotism by voting for his anti crime package so soldiers could come Home to a safer country. Domestic policy of course offers the greatest threat to the new world Aura. The few White House initiatives on Capitol Hill a civil rights transportation and the anti crime Laws a Are under demo cratic attack As no More than repackaged proposals rejected last year. Perhaps bus11 is aware of this. While most presidents have big ceremonies to sign important legislation after it is passed this president does not get Many chances like that. So on monday he reverted to practice a Public ceremony to sign his crime Bill As he sent it to Congress. The new York times first we. Popup them from the air c0<�la. Chief should be accountable for brutality try this. Slam a sofa Cushion with a baseball Bat. Now do it 55 More times. Is your Arm weary three los Angeles officers shared the labor of administering to their victim at least 56 blows with clubs hard enough to cause fillings to Fly from his Teeth fracturing his Eye socket smashing his Cheek Bone causing a Skull concussion and facial nerve damage and breaking a leg. He also suffered Burns from an electric stun gun and damage to internal organs. He will never fully recover and May have brain damage. Daryl Gates the los Angeles police chief says he is distressed. What distresses others is the fact that he is still chief. Apparently the principle of accountability never Strong in american government has become at the fuated to the Point of disappearance. Gates can be called the eight million Dollar Man. Just in the last year that sum has been awarded to vie Tims of los Angeles police misconduct. There will be two commas in the sum awarded to the Man whose Savage beating by some of Gates men was recorded by a citizen with a video camera. After almost committing homicide but before they knew they had been filmed Gates officers compounded their criminality by filing a report filled with lies. They said the victim had been driving 115 Mph in his Hyundai. The manufacturer says that car can to go that fast. The officers wrote that they used Force to Stop the victim from fighting. Witnesses and the camera say that the victim was passive while being clubbed and stomped for two minutes by the three officers As 12 other officers watched. So Gates sort spite of the fact that the victim is on parole and a convicted robber. Id be glad to a in spite of Gates ugly intimation is that a police mini riot is at least a Little bit justified if the victim has a bad enough past. I Gates once said that perhaps the reason several Blacks have died after being subdued by police choke holds is that Blacks Are More vulnerable than a nor mail people to such holds. Twenty seven people have died after such holds during Gates 13-year tenure Gates May not be at his Best when thinking and talking but the problem is not that he is no Pericles. It is that his department is demonstrably guilty of an intolerable level of abuse much of it resulting from racism. Gates sees no racial aspect to the videotaped beating but when three White men club and stomp a Black Man while a dozen other White men watch Well p will talk. They did when Jamaal Wilkes who is Black and a former Star with the lakers was handcuffed because his Auto registration was about to a yes about to a expire. Joe Morgan who is Black and a Hall of Fame second baseman was thrown to the ground and handcuffed when cops decided he looked like a drug dealer. Later the cops said a oops a and a court said a pay or. Morgan $540,000.�?� the latest episode was recorded in the most appalling video of a racial incident since the Alabama police riot at Selma a Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. How Many beatings and other indignities Are being suffered by los Angeles citizens who Are neither famous nor fortunate enough to have their experience of police misconduct videotaped the Burden now rests on the police department to disprove the Assumption shared by 54 percent of All residents that Blacks Are particularly subjected to brutality. Gates has Long been a special pinup of the kind of conservatives who Cotton to primitivism As in his thought that casual drug users should be shot. But he is a special problem for thoughtful conservatives who Are having a hard enough time convincing Congress to expand some police Powers. Every policeman present at the scene of that police crime should at a minimum be fired. Some probably most perhaps All should go to jail. And what of Gates who is paid $168,793, by the Way to produce a police Force better than his los Angeles department is police work is frequently dangerous and even More often unpleasant. It can be desensitizing and demoralizing a literally demoralizing. It requires special strength of character to do this indispensable work right Day by Day and night after night without succumbing to callousness disgust and rage. Most police officers Lead lives of heroic resistance to these weaknesses. Minimizing those weaknesses is a test of police leadership. Gates has failed that test too often. His department is illustrating redundantly an Iron Law operating throughout american government and business when there is no penalty for failure failures proliferate. The Washin Ilion Post a a
