European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 19, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday May 19, 1992 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary William Safire Here Are the latest Vee stakes Mentio nees because this is pundits ratings week issues of substance cannot be discussed Here. Only subjects fit for a to food fight can be considered which limits us to gee whizzing meaningless polls or wild speculation about who will be chosen by presidential nominees to be their running mates. I choose the latter because my last experience with polls led to prime minister Neil Kinlock and because of my responsibility As a great mentioned in Russell bakery a classic construct. Anybody mentioned herein will be identified elsewhere for years in yellowing clips As a mentioned for vice the latest software yellows scanned in clips Start with the easiest there will be no dump Quayle movement at the Republican National convention in Houston. That is because the weak end of the Bush Quayle team is president Bush who should be grateful that the confident Dan Quayle is not trying to dump him. It is now the president whose expression is being equated with that of a Deer caught in the headlights. The democratic National convention in new York should be a livelier forum for a Vee stakes. Conventional conventioneers think that Bill Clinton a Choice will be Bill Bradley but such double Billing is unlikely because sen. Bradley is a political rip Van Winkle with his alarm clock set for the year 2000. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska was Media vetted in the primaries and can energize the old Gary Hart reformers his War hero record would help Clinton against combat service Bush and the militaristic Ross Perot. But Clinton has an Opportunity to exploit the Perot candidacy which is splitting the Bush vote in Texas. Gov. Ann Richards is both a Texas Winner and a woman. A safer Choice to give democrats a real shot at taking that Pivotal states 32 electoral votes is to put sen. Lloyd Bentsen on the ticket again. He is no Spring Chicken and would have to quit some Golf clubs but no Democrat wins without Texas and this years three Way race offers a Golden Opportunity. Other Clinton Mentio nees Are Albert Gore or. And Sam Nunn both Strong in the South both respectably humourless with Gore right on desert storm and hot on global warming. If Clinton wants to make health care a big Deal he can take sen. Jay Rockefeller who can also match Perot a too Rich to steal bumper stickers. The Clinton Camp has assigned Warren Christopher his putative Secretary of state to head the a screening process. A in fact Vee staking is a device to get people thinking of Clinton As a real nominee facing Nis first presidential class Choice rather than As a press punching bag. That a also Why Perot is said to be thinking about hiring Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf to be his running mate. This would panic Bush into getting Quayle and Gen. Colin l. Powell to switch jobs a daring counterstrike also Cooling los Angeles More Likely the Perot machine would turn to somebody who could handle detailed governmental questions on meet the press the most Tough minded panel show. Former gov. George Deukmejian of California is one possibility. Another is Donald h. Rumsfeld of Illinois who has been defense Secretary and White House chief of staff and is now a chief executive officer. Sen. Warren Rudman of new Hampshire is suitably disgusted with Washington. Wild Perot card tvs Bill Moyers. But if he a smart our Jug eared Jingo will go after Bush a soft Underbelly conservative Republican women half of whom Are angered by the presidents anti abortion position. Perot operatives have sounded out Ann d. Mclaughlin the Reagan Secretary of labor named by Fortune Magazine As one of the key pm directors she took up the reforming fight that Perot abandoned. And recently when our former u n. Delegate Jeanc Kirkpatrick was asked if she would consider being the Clinton running mate she said no but added a if Ross Perot were to ask me that would be very her fluent Spanish would help in Florida Texas new York and California. Best running mate in anybody a Campaign this year would be a pro Choice Catholic hispanic woman from California steeped in foreign affairs who is running a business creating jobs and tax bases in inner cities. If anybody with those qualifications turns up ill let you know during the next pundits ratings sweep. C Tho now York timor James j. Kilpatrick nominee shows race relations not All Bleak on May 17, 1954, when Brown is. Board of education came downed Carnes w As not quite 4 years old. He was 5 when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the Back of a bus in Montgomery. He was just past 12 when James Meredith fought his Way into the University of Mississippi. All this came flooding Back the other afternoon. 1 was sitting in the empty hearing room of the Senate judiciary committee going Over the file on Carnes and i fell to musing on the changes in his life and mine. We grew up in different worlds. For the record president Bush has nominated Carnes to succeed the venerable Frank Johnson on the . Court of appeals for the 11th circuit. He is pretty Well assured of Senate confirmation now that the committee has voted 10-4 in his favor but the nomination merits a Friendly boost anyhow. With democratic Sens. Edward m. Kennedy of Massachusetts Joseph r. Biden or. Of Delaware Howard m. Metzenbaum of Ohio and Paul Simon of Illinois against him who could fail to vote in his favor any Adverse testimony was largely discounted by the support of a dozen southerners Black and White who have been closely identified with civil rights and desegregation. C Arnes has the backing of three lawmakers Quot from Alabama Sens. Howell Heflin and Richard c. Shelby both democrats and rep. Bill Dickinson a Republican. Dickinson complained lightly that Carnes has a a dearth of Republican credentials a which is True. He is about As non political As a Man can get in Public life. What set me to musing was Carnes account of his first jury trial As an assistant attorney general. He was assigned to represent the sheriff of Macon county in Alabama and his three deputies. They had been charged in a civil suit with violating the civil rights of two plaintiffs by arresting them wrongly. The interesting thing is that the sheriff and his deputies were Black and the plaintiffs were White. A in 1976 it was noteworthy a said Carnes putting the matter mildly a to find two White lawyers employed by Alabama to defend four Black noteworthy in my Day it would have been unheard of. I was born in 1920, a child of the wholly segregated South. By 1950, thanks to desegregation of the armed forces in world War ii the Walls of segregation were beginning to crack. In 1964, with the civil rights act they would All come tumbling Down. As a reporter in the 1940s, 1 covered racist judges. One luminary of the police court Bench spoke openly of the Tough sentences a a niggers could expect from him. By the time de Carnes came of age in Alabama it was very different. An Alabama judge Wilson Hayes tried a divorce Case involving a Black husband who asked to be awarded the Homestead he had brought to his marriage. The husband had fathered a number of children some of them illegitimate. Judge Hayes offered to award him the property if the Man would undergo a Vasectomy. A i Felt that attitude had no place in Alabama and no place in the judiciary a Carnes said. He prosecuted charges against the judge that led to the jurists removal from office. In another Case a judge publicly used a racial epithet. After an investigation Carnes had him removed also. The world goes round and round. In the 1930s, As a teen Ager i would have scoffed at the notion that Alabama Ever would have Black mayors Black sheriffs Black judges. Today Carnes numbers among his supporters Justice Oscar Adams who sits on the Alabama supreme court and judge Charles Price who sits on the circuit court Bench in Montgomery. In the ugly Light of a burning City it is apparent that the United states has a Long Way to go in race relations. Everyone knows that. But in reflecting on the nomination of Edward Earl Carnes of Montgomery ala., i am bound to believe that in his lifetime and mine we have come quite a Long Way. C Uriv is it Al press syn Uscatu the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page rep is sent those of the authors and sri in no Wey to by considered is representing the views of the stars and str less or the United states government
