European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 9, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday october 9, 1991 the stars and stripes a. Page 13 commentary Leslie h. Gel bit s Looney tunes As Ira Gate Saga continues you be read the Book. You could have seen the movie a or at least heard it a last week on abcs nightlife. In it were Many of yesteryear a heroes Daffy Duck played by it. Col. Oliver North goofy by former National Security Council adviser Robert Mcfarlane Peter Lorre by israeli counter terrorist chief Amiram Nir and the Marx Brothers rendered to perfection by moderate pragmatic iranian terrorists. Ted Koppel let you hear their very own voices. He and his staff obtained tapes of the actual conversations in 1986, recorded surreptitiously by an Ever helpful Lorre. You could listen to Daffy and goofy diligently peddling arms to Iran while asking the Marx Brothers to a a cause the return of american hostages. You could hear Groucho promising to a a attempt to do his Best while he seems to be asking Daffy if he would like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge. The arms for hostages plot was familiar stuff uplifted by the thought that Ronald a president might have been viewing with the rest of us. But the subplot was dynamite. It featured George Bush played bar vice president Bush and Israel dancing toward the proverbial Cliff. But so far Only the israeli press has noticed this. More about the subplot later. The movie begins with Daffy meeting the Brothers in a Frankfurt Airport hotel. To make friends he shows them pictures of the iraqi iranian Battlefield snapped by super secret . Spy satellites. You seem to hear Groucho mumble a we like. You give More pictures. I sell you Brooklyn the scene shifts to Tehran Iran. Daffy thinks the Brothers done to appreciate the importance of goofy a presence or his standing within the . Power elite so he says a i believe that someday goofy will be the president of our off Mike the Brothers appear to chirp a we sell him Brooklyn Bridge too. Cheap. He like woman we give him woman meanwhile goofy begins to suspect that the Brothers May not be men of their word and that they might not deliver the hostages or join in his proposed anticommunist crusade. Patience ebbing he tells them a a in a feeling very the Brothers Are sorry to see Daffy and goofy depart but console themselves with the 500 . Missiles the americans leave behind As a Token of my president a Good will. Now the subplot. Weeks pass without More swapping until Daffy arranges for Lorre to meet with vice president Bush playing himself in Israel. Lorre explains the problems and soon afterwards the swapping resumes. Bush suffering from Bob Gates disease will not remember the meeting Well Richard Secord a retired general who is the key operative in the Iran Contra affair tells Koppel in an aside that a a in a sure the veep played a role in getting things Back on course. Next de Meese playing an attorney general confesses the israelis he announces sold the arms to Iran and used the profits to buy arms for the nicaraguan contras. Outraged because the israelis knew nothing of the illegal Contra Angle Lorre telephones Daffy and screams a on what basis did Meese have the guts to go and say such a thing when he knows that this can be negated and proved a Daffy answers apologetically a i inadvertently misled him a but a i am at this Point forced to support the lie for my country. Fade to end. Amiram Nir Lorre reportedly died in an air crash. But his tapes survived to become the foundation of a Iran Contra the who put them in Koppel a hands and Why smart washingtonians bet that the Little tape elves were israelis or israeli friends. The theory goes As follows president Bush has been very Nasty to Israel recently holding up a a billion loan guarantee and taking a hard Public swipe at the powerful jewish lobby. This turned israeli elves into gremlins who used nightlife to lob a warning shot across Bush a Bow. The gremlins want him to know that there could be More tapes and More eager Little elves. Impresario Koppel assures me this is All wrong lie had the tapes before the confrontation Over the loan guarantees and they did no to come from the kind of elves being whispered about in Washington. I Koppel try to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge. He says he respects me too much for that. Still la in waiting for the sequels a a Daffy does and a Lorre rides c the now York times James j. Kilpatric bad checks add up to Sununu syndrome a name has to be found for a familiar phenomenon in politics. Let us Call it if you will the a Sununu syndrome a and let us apply it to a political ailment that crops up with distressing frequent by. The whole House of representatives is Down with it now. The syndrome is triggered by some event relatively Small in itself that provokes Large resentment incredulity or outrage out in the Boondocks. The syndrome draws its name of course from the presidents chief of staff John Sununu who availed himself of government transportation in order to go to his dentist. He went other places also. In a trillion Dollar budget the expense of Sununu Sailplane cannot be seen with the naked Eye. That is not the Point. The governor As he is known abused his White House privileges. He put on airs. He got too big for his britches. He lost the common touch. So it is is with the House. It should be said by Way of background that the House maintains a facility known As the House Bank. This Small facility has grilled windows like an old fashioned Bank and a general air of Gas lamps and Green Eye shades but it is not really a Bank at All. It makes no Loans and pays no interest. It exists solely for the convenience of members who want to Cash an occasional Check. On sept. 18, the general accounting office filed a report on the House Bank covering the 12 months ending june 30, 1990. Everything was tickets boo. All accounts were in order. No one had embezzled anything and the taxpayers had not lost a dime. But but during the 12-month period members of the House wrote 8,331 rubber checks. No member paid a penalty of any sort. The checks bounced and the Bank quietly covered them. Within a month the offending members redeemed the deficiencies with new deposits. No members account was suspended. This is not the Way things work in the real world. The Ordinary citizen who kites a Check is running a serious risk of exposure and censure. To have a Check returned for a insufficient funds is More than a passing embarrassment. In the real world the cops May come to Call. Not All 435 members of the House we May charitably assume suffer from the Sununu syndrome in this regard but some members seem just a Little High and mighty. The Gao audit found that 134 members bounced 581 checks for $ 1,000 or More. Some 24 representatives averaged at least one rubber Check a month. The Story of the Gao report broke in Roll Call the Capitol Hill newspaper on sept. 19. It led to a devastating column by David Broder of the Washington Post. Broder had been in the Midwest where he found that the Story of the rubber checks was All people wanted to talk about. Never mind the deficit never mind the crime Bill or the nomination of Clarence Thomas. Never mind the dissolution of the soviet Empire and the end. Of the cold War. Eighty three Hundred rubber checks who do these Birds think they Are the Broder column set off such an earthquake that House speaker Thomas s. Foley d-wash., took to the Well sept. 25. Ordinarily a mild mannered fellow Foley was As angry As anyone has Ever seen him. He had Given specific instructions a year ago that the Check bouncing was to Stop. But it had not stopped. By heaven it will Stop now and any House employee who connived in these a occasional courtesies will be subject to dismissal. I happened to be in the gallery when Foley sounded off. Only 7q members were in their seats. They listened to the speakers Tongue lashing As if they had been called to the principals office. It was quite a show while it lasted and who knows maybe it will do some Good. But 1 doubt it. The Sununu syndrome is an insidious kind of thing. In one form or another it has infected some first Elass men. One thinks of Abe Fortas of the supreme court who fuck Lessly involved himself with a tainted foundation. Jim Wright the former speaker did no to need the Petty proceeds from a phony Book Deal. Who can explain Clark Clifford and his Dalliance with crooked Bankers Clifford had been called a the venerable so often he had come to believe it. He count his millions but he Hud to have More. The greeks word for it is a hubris Quot a kind of overweening arrogance that affects some people in High office. If the burgeoning movement toward limiting the terms of members of Congress catches fire the Sununu syndrome will teed the flames. K unit in idl f Synill Viilu
