European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 4, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday january 4, 1993 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 on what will happen in 93 William Safire about last years dreary set of prognostications a Cafice loathed melancholy the new year is another Day. 1. The most unexpected Good news will be a Charles and Diana reconcile b the Quot right to intervene to Stop anarchy or genocide becomes International Law c ostentatiously informal president Bill becomes known As William Jefferson Clinton and delivers suitably Short inaugural address. Quot2. Replacements for retiring justices Harry a Black Mun Byron r. White and John Paul Stevens will be a Patricia m. Wald Mario m. Cuomo and Steven a Breyer b Laurence h. Tribe George j. Mitchell and Arthur Liman c Amalya l. Kearse Judith s. Kaye and Thomas s. Foley d Richard a. Posher Brooks Ley e. Bom and Floyd Abrams. 3. A big foreign polity headache for Clinton will be a the Balkan War involves Greece and Turkey b India supplies Syria with mass destruction weaponry c the Khmer Rouge makes War on . Troops in Cambodia d iraqi president Saddam Hussein moves to crush kurdish autonomy e democracy is overwhelmed in Venezuela and Brazil. 4. W. Jefferson Clinton a thorniest Domestic problem will be a tension with Hillary Clinton on policy grounds b loss of his voice under stress c weight approaching the presidential record of William Howard Taft d tardy reporting to Congress of intelligence findings. A a a 5. Clinton a Good deed will be recognized As a health care Reform feb economic resurgence c an abortion rights Bill d surprising acceptance of homosexuals in military. 6. An unexpected attention grabber on late night talk shows will be a the backlash to invasion of privacy by computers b revulsion against unnecessary government secrecy1 c uproar against new Perks and ethical breaches by Clinto nites. 7. Republicans will be a Shell shocked at Jeff Clinton a economic conservatism by energized by Clinton social policy intrusions c coalescing behind a Shadow government empower play by a amp cd f. Kemp and William j. Bennett d taken Over by double Pat Robertson and Buchanan e waiting for the outcome of Pete Wilson a �?T94 California race. 8. The two party system will be hit by a Ross Perot a 20 percent who revile Clinton for failing to do something about the deficit and who a a draft Perot to run again b some other Well heeled candidate perhaps merely a Multi millionaire who runs As an unabashed Liberal with Jesse Jackson a support c a a. A v Vav Hgt a. A a m their my my i i. A a a Jar a. A a a. Yew. A we be. 5r -1 a a a a. J a a r tvs. A a v.7 a a a a a fourth party of the Christian far right 9. Nonfiction Surprise Best seller will be a martyrs Day by Michael Kelly b the Good fight by Gary Hart pc Gangland by Howard Blum d Lenin s Tomb by David Remnick. It 10. First novel seized for movies will be a the 11. The new tax of the year will be a a surtax on millionaires b a gasoline tax or Oil. Import fee c a value added tax d a top rate raised to 40 percent. 12. The Economy a suffers a triple dip followed by a quadruple dip b booms with growth above 4 percent and the Dow above 4,000 c recovers sluggishly despite budget stimuli and a deficit increase d sees unemployment drop but inflation and interest rates soar. 13. The Ira Gate Independent counsel appointed under new Law passed in March targets Bush Cabinet members with a grand jury testimony of a Alan c. Raul of the agriculture department b Robert m. Kimmitt of the state department c Larry Urgenson of the Justice department d Dennis e. Klosky of the Commerce department. 14. The most creative Clinton diplomatic appointment will be a. Sol m. Linowitz to the Middle East b Strobe Talbott to Moscow c Henry a. Grunwald to Bonn d Winston lord to Beijing e Felix g. Rohatyn to Warsaw f Paul a. Volcker to Tokyo. 15. The Media Story of the year is a the creation of radio free Asia As a Force for human rights b time Warner inc. Sells times magazines to an investment consortium c the Usa today Iza Tion of the Boston Globe by purchaser Gannett d Ted Turner outbid the Walt Disney co. For Abc. My picks by a a a a be by do do b. The new president will learn what readers of this column have known for 19 years the re Are no easy choices. A a. C tto now Voyk Timis. Most of the uproar seems to arise from a conviction that some or All of the people pardoned by George Bush had actually violated a Law. Surely the simplest Way to handle that question is to acknowledge that Laws were broken. But Public interest has lately focused less on whether Laws were broken than on whether projected penalties for breaking those Laws under those circumstances were reasonable. President Bush reasoned that they were not. Surely the framers of the Constitution assumed that from time to time the president would Pardon somebody who had indeed broken a Law. It is the nature of the Law broken that arouses special interest. In the Book by Elliott Abrams undue process he tells his Story. The Walsh team threatened Abrams with prosecution because of his failure to reveal to a congressional investigating committee the full Story which involved an Effort by the White House to get from the Sultan of Brunei a few million dollars of humanitarian Aid for the Contra rebels. So there was Abrams in the hot seat asked if any foreign Money had repeat had teen sent to Nicaragua. He replied in Tiv negative which was accurate because although the Sultan had said he would give the Money in fact he had not done so. Abrams tortured himself Over the alternatives. He might have insisted on a trial and he might conceivably have won it on the grounds that he was being asked More than he should have been obliged under executive Protection to divulge. A perfectly serious Legal argument can be made to this effect. But there was this problem if he lost he would go to jail and in any event he would spend most of his working life accumulating Money to pay past Bills for lawyers Caspar w. Weinberger told a committee that he had not made notes at a meeting but the investigators invited by Weinberger to Survey his papers found that indeed he had made notes at the meeting in question a so he was mistaken. And in the notes so gleefully seized upon by the Independent prosecutor in / the Iran Contra affair Lawrence e. Walsh there was mention that a the a pm went along with the president. Weinberger explained that somewhere along the line after consulting with his counsel Ronald Reagan had concluded that As president his authority to Nego William f. Buckley Tate for the release of our hostages overrode prohibitions against trading with Iran. This classically is what one might designate As  Point. You can argue yes you can argue no. If the prosecution so taken with strict construction of the Law had gone after Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the same spirit he would have been impeached 10 times before Pearl Harbor Abraham Lincoln would have gone Down with his suspension of Hareas Corpus and Thomas Jefferson with the Louisiana Purchase. Most americans Are glad that Walsh is behind us and not a few of them Are indignant at the palpable politicization of the Weinberger Case a sleepy indictment of which was released a few Days before the presidential election. But nonvolatile students of the episode do need to wonder about the question of accountability. It is one thing to Vest authority in the chief executive to conduct foreign policy another to assume that the mandate excludes Congress from imposing certain limitations. The War Powers act for instance has never been tested by the courts. President Reagan proceeded As though it. Did not exist and so did Bush. Nor have we set up a satisfactory design far special investigations. We have Learned through the Walsh mess that the Odds Are too heavily weighted against the Public servant. Such pressures As Abartis a pardoned by the president from the hours of Community service he still owed in Requital of his sentence a faced arc unconscionable. A first step toward Reform would be to assign the Cost of defense of any activity _ done under orders to the government. A second Reform would reasonably impose on the president the obligation to report to selected congressional leaders when in his judgment existing Laws need to be circumvented or transcended to discharge the primary obligations of the president. Those congressional leaders then would need to decide whether their own duty to the Constitution requires them to seek an impeachment. There is vague talk of calling Bush to the stand and even Reagan. It is not Likely to happen. It is not lost on the american people that those who cooperated with the Reagan Bush White House had nothing personally to gain from doing what they thought was their div. Among the thousands who fled to Canada to avoid the draft Many did so exclusively to guard against exposure to Viet Cong bullets. In pardoning them All Jimmy Carter did not pause to make the distinctions. Conr Kraj prow Syndicate