European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 22, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Saturday june 22, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary William Safi re Sununu in t a a a. Say what you like about Jimmy Carter but Grant him instinctive Good judgment about the american voters distaste for royalist. Me ostentatiously carried his own garment bag. John Sununu to whom George Bush has delegated More Power than anyone does not understand that americans despise big shot ism in Public servants. On the contrary he seems driven to Call attention to his inflated sense of indispensability. He had already been reproved by the president and ridiculed by the Media for using air Force jets to Fly to ski vacations and dentist visits. Apparently no qualified dentists practice in Washington awaiting later exposure were the dates of his meager recompense to the nation for a tiny portion of the expenses a largely after not before his sustained rip off came under scrutiny. That would have caused any politician with a modicum of judgment to proceed with care thereby to avoid providing the presidents opponents with ammunition to help them revive the sleaze Issue. Not the Eddie Rickenbacker of air Sununu. He actively solicited corporate Jet travel for political jaunts forcing local republicans into the same tawdry Dodge of a a repaying a tiny fraction of the real Cost of the travel. He would have the Public believe that the lobbyist for beneficial corp., who catered to his privacy needs during a recent flight never discussed any matter beneficial to beneficial. Worst of All the successor to Sherman Adams in _ More ways than one commandeered a White House limousine to take him on a five hour drive to a stamp auction in new York City. The impoverished new Hampshire Man forked Over $5,000 for three Stamps used on letters mailed to Europe aboard the Graf Zeppelin showing anew his troubling fixation on aviation. Why the Long Limo ride in capt. Que Egian response to Sharp interrogation by abcs Sam Donaldson the White House chief of staff explained that his round the clock Job meant a i have to be Able to communicate to work on sensitive papers to coordinate the White House activities even while in a then he have attended the stamp auction by Telephone As so Many bidders do or flown a commercial shuttle which the president could reach by radio in some imagined emergency about quotas or the death penalty or taken the speedy Amtrak metro liner which has a Telephone on it a and even a club car if Sununu finds repugnant the proximity of noisome commoners anybody As vitally important As John Sununu thinks he is to the management of the Bush White House a nay to the survival of the United states As we know it a should be encased in a Glass Bubble inside a clean Ellen Goodman room under the Cone of silence. This is what happens when a Workaholic is grimly determined to play. He is a walking embarrassment the presidents men refer to him As a the Zombie Down the if Barbara Bush were Nancy Reagan the chief of staff would already have suffered resignation by a thousand leaks. Why does he not have a lightning fast mind yes proving that brilliance and stupidity can co exist does the White House counsel not uphold the legality of his improprieties yes,.which is causing Boyden Gray to corrupt his ethics task Sununu should be dumped because he lacks a presidential aides most essential attribute political judgment. Ethical breaches if acknowledged might be forgiven but sustained obtuseness bringing deserved ridicule on the administration imperils the Success of a presidency. He is widely perceived to be a pompous ass not because Quot self styled experts Are anti travel or because Bush opponents Are trying to be smear the president through him but because lie has repeatedly demonstrated arrogant asininity. And he has neither the judgment nor the loyalty to see How his supposed round the clock and his indefatigable perk Manship undermine the president and make a laughingstock of the Republican Carter used to Trot up the Steps to air Force one wave and hand his garment bag to an aide a who kept the secret that the bag was empty. But better that hypocrisy of humility than this persistence in pomposity. C tote now York times. The opinions expressed in and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United states old boy drummers Pound beat at Vii the Virginia military Institute is no Walden Pond. Trust me on this. I have been to the school and seen it in All of its spartan Neo gothic plainness. Nevertheless Federal judge Jackson l. Kiser invoked the spirit of Henry David Thoreau when he upheld the right of this College to ban women. He said Quot Vii truly marches to the beat of a different drummer and 1 will permit it to continue to do a different drummer any drummer at Vii is probably playing John Philip Sousa. The Row of cannons the Quot Stonewall Jackson statue the institutionalized hazing. The rigid Hierarchy Are not what the Concord philosopher had in mind when he Sang the praises of nonconformity. But the misuse of Thoreau s words is just a Parol the strange tale of the Vii Case. Ever since a girl asked for admittance to the 152-year-old state military Academy an entire battalion of men have tried to protect their tradition. They be done it by speaking the language of those who pressed for change. A near ago in a Campus interview the gentlemanly superintend ent Gen. John Knapp based his claim to remain All male on the values of diversity and her site among institutions that is. And Equality among men. In court this Spring the Vii lawyer a Robert Patterson himself a graduate a argued that the school id be saved from the government s desire for Juss it should be Given Quot the same so l Protection As the spotted owl and six legged there was no attempt to deny sex discrimination no attempt to prove that women can t perform in a military Academy. Underlying the argument was the notion that we have come so far in changing society that places such As Vii and t he Citadel in South Carolina Are an endangered species. Even a min a tamed Quot rat line system a the ritual abuse of freshmen a a rats a was More to be saved than censored. You done to have to read far to catch the subtext male bastions have been so successfully breached their Power so eroded that what was once the establishment is now the last alternative. What was once the Norm is now daringly different. A drum Roll please. The Vii that i visited did indeed seem much More of an anachronism than a threat. But the attempt to portray the institution As beleaguered up against a feminist w All May ring a bit hollow in a state where Vii grads form a powerful old boy network. What is going on is very much in keeping with the current passion to compete for the role of victim a especially the victim of reverse discrimination or political correctness. The other argument co opted is the one usually put Forward by All women a colleges. Kiser sounded like a brochure from Smith when he concluded that Quot providing a distinctive single sex educational Opportunity is More important than providing an education equally available to but while All male and All female colleges do hang together on some of the same arguments they make very strange bedfellows. Most women s colleges Pul themselves in the Avant Garde of women a rights while Vii and the Citadel defend what is most benignly called a traditional male environment. Legally the women s colleges Are private while Vii is publicly funded to the tune of a million a year Virginia a taxpayers Are forking Over Money to a school that bans their daughters. That a the very essence of illegal sex discrimination. Its Likely the District court decision will be overturned but not certain. Meantime Kiser has decided that we All have something to lose if the last a rat Quot disappears from the educational environment. The interest in saving these rodents overrides the interest in Espial Opportunity frankly i doubt that the rat would be any More deeply mourned than that other extinct species Jim Low some traditions need honouring. Some need burying. It Vii can t evolve then perhaps it can be a museum a Blurb Ridge Village of be olde male ways of doing things. Look kids see the Young men in uniforms shave each other s Heads. See the older students heaping abuse upon the younger. Hey pops where were All the women. Is Bosto 1
