European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 17, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday september 17, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary Anthony Lewis Bush using conservative court for Power play a great misunderstanding a a great irony a underlies the political debate about the supreme court. It needs illumination As Senate hearings on the nomination of judge Clarence Thomas proceed. President Bush and others on his Side say they want a a conservative a court one that will merely interpret the Law and not  they cheer the extent to which the present court already fits their Model. They want More of the same and expect it from Thomas. But look at the record of the supreme court As the new majority consolidated its position last term. What you see is a court Bent on building up the centralized Power of the president allowing him to rewrite statutes and use the court for end runs around Congress. A court weakening the Protection of individuals from the Power of the state. In Short it is increasingly a statist court. And that is the opposite of what the conservatives who wrote the . Constitution had in mind. It is the opposite of what political conservatives have wanted of the supreme court through most of its history. The framers of the Constitution feared centralized government Power. They had experienced George i and did not want a new american version of his tyranny. They equally feared the passions of a populist majority. It was for those reasons that the Constitution had All its checks and balances built into it the separation of Powers Between Congress and the executive for one. And it was for those reasons that a Bill of rights protecting individuals was added to the Constitution 200 years ago. The balance of Powers has been tilted out of recognition by a device of the present court. As a Rule of How to interpret statutes it has said it ordinarily will follow the interpretation put on them by executive officials. That applies even when officials change the interpretation and turn the meaning of a Law upside Down. The Case in Point is last years 5-4 decision in rust is. Sullivan. In 1970, Congress passed a Law authorizing Federal funds for family planning clinics. For 17 years the Law was interpreted to let doctors in those clinics give patients information on abortion. Then in 1988, a Reagan administration official issued regulations that forbade the doctors to mention abortion or even to give patients the name of an outside doctor who would discuss it. It was a novel executive interpretation of the 1970 Law not easy to justify in the words of the statute but the supreme court upheld the regulation. Moreover the court ignored its established practice of construing statutes to avoid possible violations of constitutional rights a in this Case the doctors right to free speech. It found the ban on mentioning abortion constitutional thus indicating the remarkable doctrine that whenever the government aids an institution it can dictate what anyone there May say. Affirmative action provides another example. In 1971 in the Griggs Case the court held that under civil rights Laws employment tests were suspect when they produced racial disparities. The Griggs ruling was widely applied and accepted in Industry. There was no Chance that Congress would change it by legislation. So the Reagan administration challenged it in the supreme court and the court in 1989 changed its mind and adopted the new executive Reading of the statute. Since 1989, Congress has tried to pass legislation restoring the Griggs Standard. But now president Bush can thwart a majority by using his veto and he has done so. Thus the supreme court has greatly in creased the presidents Power on the Issue. For political conservatives to Praise that kind of supreme court has a special historical irony. When Franklin d. Roosevelt and the new Deal came along in the 1930s, conservatives fiercely resisted the practice of Congress delegating to the president the right to Issue regulations under general legislative mandates. Bush and his right Wing supporters say they want a strict construction Quot of the Law by judges. It is a transparently cynical claim. What they want and what they Are getting is a supreme court that will increase presidential Power and carry out the political Agenda of the Radical right it would be More honest of the president to say that that is his goal an activist right Wing court a statist court. Then the Sovereign Public could decide whether that is the supreme court it wants. C tie new York times George Gedd Apost marxist Era divides conservative Camp for two generations conservatives walked in lock step United in their anticommunist Zeal. But rifts Are now appearing on the right As the Post marxist Era dawns. Has the time come for the United states to cease being aggressively interventionist or is the notion of a world free of Security risks to America naive and dangerous a your War the cold War is Over Quot wrote columnist Patrick Buchanan. A time for America to come  fellow conservative Charles Krauthammer demurred a even after the defeat of the soviet threat we face a highly dangerous new world. Our Best Hope for safety. Is in american strength and will the strength to recognize the unipolar world and the will to Lead  Between Buchanan and Krauthammer is Zbigniew Brzezinski perhaps the most conservative of the senior advisers to president Carter. He believes that neither isolationism nor a worldwide a Pax americana Are practical options. He envisions the United states As the principal source of nuclear deterrence. Conservatives were Riding High throughout the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan carried their gospel to the White House. Their influence lessened somewhat under president Bush but it was the collapse of East european communism that put their ranks in a True quandary. The political implications of the schism on the right remain unclear. Midge Decter a conservative commentator agrees with Krauthammer. A America is the worlds policeman whether you i or the american government likes it or not a Decter said. But Sheldon Richman of the libertarian Cato Institute closes ranks with Buchanan and his isolationist allies. It is time for the United states to learn from its costly past mistakes and return to a foreign policy designed to a guard the peace and Security of the american people at Home not to extend american Power hither and Yon for grandiose schemes a Richman said. The latest Cato target is the proposed 10-year Extension of . Base rights in the Philippines. The Subic Bay naval base said Caton a Ted Galen Carpenter does nothing for . Security interests. Buchanan wants to dissolve the Mutual Security treaty with Japan withdraw All ground forces from South Korea and pull All troops and weapons out of Europe once soviet troops Are out of Eastern Europe the Baltic and the Ukraine. He recommends an end to . Bilateral Aid and urges the United states to pull out of International lending institutions. There Are too Many unmet needs at Home Buchanan said. He is unperturbed by the Prospect of Germany and Japan going nuclear saying a we lived with nuclear weapons in the hands of Stalin and Mao. Why fear them in the hands of Kapitu or Kohl a Krauthammer believes the end of the cold War will offer the United states no respite from onerous International obligations. As he sees it there will still be plenty of International wrongs that Only America can right. He recalled that when the cold War was won the first response was a demand for unilateral disarmament the Folly of which he said was underscored a year ago when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. A it took Saddam to remind us that the world is a Nasty place even without the soviet threat Quot Krauthammer wrote. Declaring that there is no alternative to an assertive . International role Krauthammer cited a Pentagon study contending there will be two dozen developing countries with ballistic missiles by the year 2fkm30 with chemical weapons 10 with biological weapons and almost As Many with nuclear weapons. He claimed that because of the technological revolution a Small peripheral and backward states will be Able to emerge rapidly As threats not Only to regional Security but to world Security a to Deal with this situation he said it May be necessary to disarm these nations even if that infringes on cherished ideas of sovereignty. Krauthammer sees yet another threat in the Rise of what he Calls Quot aggressive nationalism a groups that command american sympathy when they Are Down but which May act in ways that Quot elicit horror when they Are up. To Deal with this Specter Krauthammer recommends not . Retreat but a . Effort Quot to try to create new norms and  under Krauthammer a new world order when a existing International rules conflict with Basic american values to hell with the  Krauthammer said America has historical responsibilities it cannot evade but Buchanan labelled such notions As  Quot co embrace them he said invites the United states to wind up in the same nursing Home As Britannia. A he continued a the incivility of our cities the fading away of the Reagan Boom the Rise of ethnic hatred Are concentrating the minds of americans on their own society what doth it profit a nation if it gain the whole world and lose its own soul a c the associated press