European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 13, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Tuesday december 13, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 Boren May be party proper for Clinton in y96 William Safire the latest Gallup poll shows president Clinton losing in a two Way race even losing a three Way race with Ross Perot taking away Republican votes and certainly losing a four Way race with Jesse Jackson cutting int democratic support. That linear polling reflects the Winter of voter Discon tent. It presupposes the same old lineup rep resenting the forces of resent ment. But let s Blue sky the options opened by democrats treating their president As an Albatross and the gop hot with ideological hubris. First the easy part. A month or so ago Newt Gingrich was answering question about running for president with a straightforward no today he has changed that to i have no plans to in political Lingo no plans Means my options Are open and i can make plans in a hurry. If the speaker declares next summer that his first con tract has been carried out and announce for president he can say he was not being disingenuous or misleading with his no plans statement because no plan was actually on paper at the time. In reality Newt Bob Dole and Pete Wilson Are neck and neck front runners coming out of the starting Gate for1996,with Phil Grahm Jack Kemp Lamar Al expander and Dick Cheney hoping the Early footers will run out of steam. Democrats afflicted with can to win blues can expect a primary Challenge to the president assuming which i do that Clinton runs no matter what. The Rene Gade will Garner at least a third of the democratic vote As Pat Buchanan did against president Bush further weak ening the party in the general election. Now comes the interesting part. I Perot runs again and matches his 1992 vote of 19 percent and if Jackson or whoever carries the Liberal Banner can be persuaded not to run As an Independent then Clinton has a Good Chance to be re elected despite polls taken at today Nadir. Ross is Central to Clinton s chances that s Why Clinto nites Are belatedly cramping at Al Gore for whipping Perot m Naftal debate but consider this dynamically rather than statically As Budge Teers say. With a Perot candidacy adjudged As Likely to re elect Clinton and with the mad As Hells to be doomed again to frustration will Perot and his followers be Content to Cir Cle the political Drain again not necessarily. Perot s personality is drag on his ticket and he May be cocky but he s not crazy 19 percent is his High water Mark and Ross cannot relish being remembered As the next Stassen running with greater futility every time. That makes it Warwick time a they used to say on the elizabethan stage Perot As Kingmaker financier of a centrist change maker with solid anti government credentials in government and acceptable to the respectable Center. If republicans move sharply rightward with Gingrich or Gramm or if the tug to starboard produces a More right Wing Dole or an immigration Wilson and if Clin ton s Call to disaffected demo centrists to stay in the Arena and not in the Peanut Gal Lery somehow keeps them in the Liberal party tent then a Hole would open for a third party movement to run to Daylight. But you can t beat somebody with nobody As Warwick used to say and you sure can twin with Perot out front. Who s around the Guy who worries the Whitehouse most in this far out scenario is the respected anti partisan David Boren 52.he retired As a popular democratic sen Ator from Oklahoma before the recent Tsu Nami blasting the Wishful thinking that the current level of popular Discon tent is within Normal Bounds and denouncing Washington politicians As so partisan and so personal in our attacks on each other that we can no longer effectively work together in the Public because Perot first tipped the Media off that Boren would abandon muscle bound Washington to head the University of Oklahoma i called Boren to see if he would be running As an Independent he said not in wallowed As How he hoped his Good Friend Ross would not head a third party ticket himself and speculate jovially about somebody like Sam pie in the Blue sky probably. But a Hole is opening in the ant political spectrum the glory of our system is that you never can foretell. -. , re c Newyork Kelmo when it comes to litigation less is Niobe my friends exalted Ron Brown then demo cratic party chairman now Secretary of Commer Ceto an american bar association forum in november 1992,"i there to Tell you that the lawyers won that was True Given the democrats enthusiasm for the regulatory state and their aversion rewarded by Campaign contributions from trial lawyers for reforms Suchias the loser pays Rule to inhibit litigious Ness. So Are lawyers Happy not exactly. Nearly a Quarter of them say they would choose different profession were they starting Over. Seventy five percent of the members of the California bar association do not want their children to become of Job satisfaction Are falling alcoholism and clinical depression Are rising. Lawyers says Mary Ann Glendon of the Harvard Law school in her new Book nation under lawyers How the crisis in the Legal profession is transforming american society Are like Many other americans Only More so. Lawyers Are experiencing release from traditional restraints and Are experiencing High society s complexity and government s Regula tory role increases so does recourse to Law. This is Bot cause and effect of the weakening of the democratic culture of persuasion and of habits of accommodation. What Glendon Calls skills of associating manners have atrophied and been sup planted by lawsuits Over the disappointments of every Day life. One Day we complain of suffocating in a regulatory Miasma writes Glendon on the next we ransack the Legal cupboard for nostrums to rectify every wrong to Ward off every risk and to cure every social and economic Law rather than harnessing the Pas Sions is increasingly pressed into their service. Time was when much of layering consisted Accord ing to the turn of the Century lawyer and statesman Elihu Root in telling would be clients that they Are damned fools and should Stop today lawyers Are connoisseurs of conflict maximizing billable hours. The pressure to do that discourages preventive layering accommodations to avoid time consuming litigation. And aggressive activities Glendon warns have a constitutive effect on charac Ter we become what we Are institutionalizing conflict giving Rise to rambo Liti gators destructive of the moral ecology of the As lawyers adversarial activities crowd out their order affirm Rig activities the Legal profession now nearly 800,000strong, counting judges and teachers is Glendon says rapidly shedding the habits and restraints that once made the Bench and the bar pillars of the democratic Young people do not acquire respect for restraints at Law schools where the prevailing ideology is that Lawis nothing More than concentrated politics and there is disdain for the classical Ideal or the judicial role. That Ideal involves three forms of self control Struc Tural restraint respecting limits on judicial Power set by federalism and the separation of Power interpretive restraint respecting limits imposed by precedent George f. Will statute and the Constitution s text and Structure and personal restraint not allowing personal political agendas to color decision making processes. Felix Frankfurter said a judge Worth his Salt is in the grip of his Glendon says today s militant judges have slipped that grip and rationalize their emancipation from restraints this Way if the House is on fire it makes no difference who puts out the Blaze the branches of government should be partners cooperating in the solutions of new social and economic americans Glendon says learn More about Lawand government in the toils of the tax welfare or social Security system than in the jury room town meeting or party precinct organization. Such experiences tend to engender feelings of frustration and helplessness rather than a sense of empowerment. Any Parent who has dealt with the educational bureaucracy knows firsthand what itis to be treated like a subject rather than a citizen. We Are encountering Law More but participating less in its creation and hence the rising support for such policies As a Flat tax and school Choice. Glendon believes the extended orgy of Lega hubris is winding perhaps. If republicans heed the nation s impatience with the regulatory state if re publicans deliver loser pays and other reforms and if sen. Orrin Hatch s Senate judiciary committee will no confirm judges who will not confine themselves to a Judi Cial function then in this year s elections lawyers lost. But Glendon suggests that by losing some Power an moving More to the Periphery of . Life the Legal profession might become not Only better but happier. C Wahington Post
