European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 19, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Thursday november 19, 1992 commentary the stars and stripes Page 15republicans whistling in dark slightly off key a a v 4. George f. Will democrats dispensing jobs arc fending off phone Calls from hundreds of people who claim to have sat next to them in third Grade. Republicans Are pre paring to have their own fun. A a the Delight of political life a exclaims one parliamentarian in a Trollope novel a is altogether in opposition. The very inaccuracy which is permitted to opposition is in itself a Charm Worth More than All the patronage and All the prestige of ministerial  not quite but there is a delightful Republican attempt to build Confidence on a rickety scaffolding of Little numbers. Bill Clinton got 3 percent less of the popular vote a than Michael Dukakis got Clinton got just 39 percent of the White vote and 41 percent of the male vote both what Dukakis got. But Clinton a weak numbers were produced by Ross Perot a exercise in political Auto eroticism. Clinton a Strong number is he won 100 percent of the White House. After 1988, the democratic chorus seemed to have shrunk to a duet of Blacks and White liberals. Large parts of both groups Are Public employees so the party looked like government organized As an interest group. After its 1992 defeat the gop looks like a discordant duet of the affluent the Only economic cohort Bush carried was people earning More than $75,000 and the religious right. Still the fact that there can be such sudden reversals of parties fortunes remember 1964-68 and 1972-76 stimulates Republican Hopes. For now the focus of Republican strife is the chairmanship of the Republican National committee a position filled or at least occupied by Rich Bond whose delicacy can be gauged by his dismissal of Clinton democrats a we Are America. These other people Are  in july As Clinton surged Bond yawned a time passes. Gravity occurs. The tide goes out and Low tide is on the Way for Bill  on the Way out today Are the likes of Bond and Charles Black a Bush Campaign official who reportedly wants Bonds Job. Black a hired gun Calls to mind Winston Churchill a description of the British statesman 1st Viscount Boling broke a the could hit any Nail on the head though which particular Nail never seemed important to  As a Leader of the Black Manafort Stone amp Kelly influence factory in Washington he Symbol izes the Beltway political culture that most members of the inc who live out in America despise. They will elect the next chairman in january. Bond is having a conniption because Pete Dupont former Delaware governor and 1988 presidential candidate expressed an interest in the inc Job before Bush lost. A absolute political treachery. Disloyal unseemly and cowardly a fumed Bond who being a Bush Republican May find Dupont unintelligible because Dupont takes ideas seriously. Do Pont believes that the marginal advantage republicans can gain from further refining Campaign techniques polling focus groups Etc is negligible. A we must place the marketing of our ideas ahead of the Selling of our Candi  candidates coming to party Headquarters should not learn about a Blue shirts and red tics or red dresses and makeup for television but rather about school Choice free Trade capital gains tax policy Etc. Conservative ideas says Dupont Are harder to sell than Liberal ideas. The costs or risks of conservative ideas often Are immediate and obvious whereas the benefits May be delayed and indirect. For example a capital gains rate reduction May increase the deficit and make some Rich people Richer a but the Benefit of a stronger Economy arrives on a different train an unknown track and with an Uncertain  conservative ideas face marketing difficulties. A the Media done to help because their inclinations run a different course. The education system does no to help because its own operations Are based on a different Model. Most a nonpartisan institutions a labor unions universities the american association of retired persons the league of women voters a a done to help because their philosophy is the opposite of  Dupont whose credentials include Bonds hostility would be an energizing party chairman. However if other potential presidential candidates will not allow that the new chairman should at least be someone unaligned with any candidate which might Rule out retiring Minnesota rep. Vin Weber who is close to Secretary of housing and Urban development Jack f. Kemp but who would use people like Dupont to stress ideas lie Nee the considerable support for Spence Abraham. He is a founder of t he federalist society which plants the seeds of conservatism in the Stony ground of Law schools and courts. When he was chairman of the Michigan gop he helped Lay the groundwork for the election of an activist conservative governor John Angler. T he Republican resurgence in Michigan continued this year a against the Bush undertow and in a state with Many minority and Union voters a with republicans making fresh gains in the state legislature. Abraham is co chairman of the National Republican congressional committee where he did not renew any of the committees 57 contracts with consultants and still made the first Republican gains in the House in four elections. T Hose Are 57 reasons for choosing him. It Iho Washington pos there s no basis for military s homosexual ban the real Issue Isnit whether homosexuals should serve in the armed forces. They Are serving now. They always have. They always will. Petty officer 1st class Keith Meinhold the exemplary Sailor the Navy tried to kick out has been a homosexual in the armed forces for 12 years no less. The Only Point at Issue is whether homosexuals should be allowed to be open about themselves if they wish As Meinhold does. Candidate Bill Clinton said yes. President Clinton will too. You can already hear the Low growling like big trucks warming up on the religious right. But the Prospect is surely far More unnerving than the reality will be. And that is not just guessing. We be been through this twice before. We went through it in 1948, when president Truman racially integrated the military then too there were dire warnings of shattered discipline and of a generation of officers a disproportionately from the Jim Crow South a turning in their brass. Similar if slightly less alarmist worries accompanied the movement in recent years of women into military roles from which they historically had been excluded. Women now account for about 11 percent of the armed forces. It was the resulting changed military a integrated by race and gender and the object of so much past hand wringing a that recently kicked Tail All Over the iraqi desert. The bar against Gays and lesbians is a fairly recent phenomenon a product of the huge world War ii Muster. Until then the armed services punished homosexual Misbehaviour just As they punished wayward heterosexual acts but not homosexuality per be. That a the obvious Model for change now. Sometimes going backward can be Progress. The current prejudice is rooted in part in a false belief that Gays and lesbians Are predators out to sexually Sunborn heterosexuals. That and a residue of nonsense from the Security hysteria of the 1950s that equated As one official Witch Hunt put it a subversives and  the military itself has known for some time that Tom Teepen there is no solid basis for its exclusion of Gays and lesbians. Its own Crittenden Board in 1957 found no evidence that homosexuals Quot cannot acceptably serve in the  a defense department study made Public in 1989 found that service personnel dismissed As homosexuals were better qualified and had fewer personal problems than the average service heterosexual. The army times and the Navy times a Independent publications closely tied to the military hierarchies a editorialized this year for dropping the ban against Gays and lesbians. The general accounting office recently reported that it is costing $27 million a year to enforce largely ineffectively an exclusion that nearly All of our allies including Germany and Japan dropped years ago and that Canada packed in last month. Bill Clinton Isnit preparing to Send the . Military spinning off on some eccentric policy toot. He is instead about to fast March the armed services into an International military mainstream in which they began falling behind years ago. C Coa nows service