European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 02, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday August 2, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 with thinking Cap on top Wie plan for Complete gop sets policy stage it was what Republican National committee chairman Haley Barbour called idea week on the gop front. What the republicans emphasized foreign policy and what they played Down. Abortion tells you a lot about the Way they intend to play politics in the elections of 1994 and 1996. First let it be noted that the script for idea week did not include Bob Dole s promoting delay in consideration of health care legislation. The whole idea of idea week As Barbour said was to demonstrate Republican commitment to develop Good Public policy that would Challenge the David s. Broder views of the Democrat controlled White House and Congress. Dole on Capitol Hill that inac Tion in the face of serious medical inflation and Large gaps in health insurance might be the Best outcome did not tout it mildly sound the affirmative note republicans were seeking. But More often than not in the time i be Cov ered politics the opposition party s con Gressional leaders whether democratic or Republican have been consumed by the insider tactics of Capitol Hill and heedless of the need to develop policy proposals that can win voter approval in coming National campaigns. That s Why sponsoring policy development forums is one of the few really vital tasks a National party can perform when it has lost the White House. Former Republican chairmen Ray Bliss and Bill Brock understood that and moved quickly to set up such panels after the gop de feats of 1964 and 1976 one reason that the republicans recovery time in each in stance was Cut to four years. The democratic chairmen could t grasp the concept even after consecutive losses in 1980,1984 and 1988, it was Only when the unofficial democratic leadership Council developed a serious policy Arm in 1989 that the intellectual foundations were Laid for the election of its chairman Bill Clinton. After becoming gop chairman last year Barbour quickly put together the financing and organizational Structure for a Semi autonomous National policy forum under Veteran idea broker Michael e. Baroody. At a news conference kicking off idea week the forum produced its first report listening to America a sum Mary of themes and messages heard at 62grass-roots meetings around the country.3ft is. A broadly written document less specific even than a party platform but its Large themes reflect the economic and so Cial conservatism that has been the gop for three decades. In View of the attention abortion gets. Every four years the report s treatment of it was striking. In the 64 pages i found Only these two sentences on the subject when a Nebraska born Republican on the West coast called family values a thinly veiled negative anti abortion message and a dead Issue another member of the audience responded the abortion Issue is not dead not while lives Are being taken and not while my tax dollars Are paying for it whenever the Issue arose the latter sentiment seas the majority note the factual tone of the last sen tence the acknowledgement of diff Rencs of opinion among Loyal republicans. That i would guess is the Way the Issue will be approached in 1996, if Barbour has his Way. Reducing it to less than on paragraph in a chapter on strengthening the family was a Clear Effort to put it in perspective. If you want to know what Barbour considers a Large Issue look at what he did directly under inc auspices later last week with a forum on american foreign policy for which he lined up two former secretaries of state Henry a. Kissinger and James a. Baker Iii former Secretary of defense Dick Cheney an former. Ambassador to the United nations Jeane j. Kirkpatrick. The theme was stated at the outset by Baker when he said that despite successes in some areas notably Russia the Middle East and International Trade the Clinton administration has squandered american credibility and undermined our pre Eminence around the the Root causes Baker said Are that there is no Overall sense of direction and no sense of consistency. There is fragmentation in authority. There is tendency to View foreign policy through. The Lens of Domestic politics. Andl seeming inability to understand the importance of american if the International Community is going to act on the challenges of the Post cold War world Baker said Only America can Lead. the presi Dent can Lead America much As he would like he cannot be just a Domestic Cheney who is gearing up to run for president in 1996, embellished the theme with references to the five decades of sacrifice under presidents of both Par ties a that enabled the West to win the cold War and installed the United states As the Only superpower. Now he said employing the verb of the Day that Good by inheritance is being squandered by one of the least competent administrations in the 20th the populist tone of Barbour s grass roots report was counterbalanced shrewdly by the use of four highly credentialed authorities to make they Case for change of management and direction in foreign policy. Erase Dole and idea week was a textbook example of the Way a smart political party prepares the ground for a possible comeback. C Washl Niton Post _ Churchill s party lagged behind his leadership it was Only a matter of time before the alchemists of history got around to Winston Churchill. Unlike Franklin Roosevelt Dwight Eisenhower and _ other world War ii leaders Churchill in t being accused of dalliances in the bedroom. Instead the spotlight is on the Little noted retrospective that members of his own conservative party regretted that the pugnacious Churchill had ascended to the prime minister s role in 1940 and that Only his popularity with the Public kept them from pitching his Ca reer into the thames and with it i might add the future of new Book published in England looks into Church ill and those around him. Called eminent Church ii Hans it was written by historian Andrew Roberts. It contains a series of essays about people identified wit Churchill s political career including two essays on Churchill himself. What strikes me about the excerpts i have read in the sunday times of London is that Churchill was not burdened by his detractors in parliament because he knew that with every glorious speech he delivered the people of Britain came to be More on his Side. Most Likely Churchill never would have become prime minister replacing the impotent Neville Chamberlain had he not been so publicly open about his opposition to the appeasement policy of Chamberlain to Ward nazi Germany. While the representatives of British government grumbled in their pews newspapers began a clamor for Churchill to head the government and the Man fed that idea with rhetoric that encouraged both the press and the Public. Roberts Book reveals that members of Churchill s own party formed cabals in his Early Days As prime min ister to withhold full support from the coalition he had formed with the divided Labo party. There remained loyalty to Chamberlain particularly since Churchill had been so openly aggressive toward him. The Roberts Book is no the first to note the ill will to Ward Churchill but the first to amplify on it. In his 1988 Book on a portion of Churchill s life the last lion author Wil Liam Manchester quoted Churchill s private Secretary sir John Colville Seldom can a prime minister have taken of fice with the establishment. So dubious of the Choice and so prepared to have its doubts but As Harry Truman was to do in 1948, Churchil found that his strength came from the people. Shortly after assuming the prime minister s Post in 1940, the Howard Kleinberg miraculous Rescue of British troops took place at Dun Kirk. Then Churchill made his famous we shall fight on the beaches speech. Two weeks later he delivered his finest hour speech. Clearly when Europe piece by piece to the armies and air Force of Adolf Hitler Churchill was offering at least Bull dogged inspiration to the concerned britons. Soon his enemies thai Tarng it Ibsen in his own party got a better whiff of which Way the wind was blowing. Roberts writes of a of parliament who having recognized Churchill s Public popularity observed in his diary that while he was not one of Churchill s admirers and did not previously be Lieve in his fitness for office he did Admire the Man s courage abilities and patriotism. In Many ways he wrote he is the right Man for the present 7 the present situation ended with the conclusion of world War ii and Churchill was dumped in favor of the labor party s Clement Attlee but before that Churchill had endeared himself to the British people and to the Western world As Well. It is painful to imagine How the world would have turned had not Winston Churchill shepherded the British peo ple through those very difficult Days of 1940 and 1941." c Cox new service
