European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 15, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Thursday december 15,1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 17 still waiting for Glinton to Rise from in the month since the election we have been waiting to see whether Bill Linton could recover from the defeat and emerge a stronger person and president As of now the answer looks to be no. Weakness and vacuity Are what we see in the Clinton administration. It move from Day to Day empty of vision a government without a design. Clinto himself seems More and More like Herman Mel Ville s Bartley the Scrivener dwindling haunt ing presence inthe White House. There was telling example of the Way things Are in the administration s change of Anthony Lewison Bosnia. It gave up the Effort to Nave nato press the serbian aggressors by serious attacks giving Way to British and French objections. The new York times published a de tailed report on How the decision came about. It was proposed in a memorandum by the president s National Security adviser Anthony Lake the Story reported and for Mally embraced at a meeting of the presi Dent s torn advisers that neither Clinton Norvice president a Gore  Clinton had approved the Lake memo the report said but he was at his Camp David Retreat and had been involved Only sporadically in the bosnian  so he hardly participated in the discussion of a decision that has fateful implications for resistance to aggression and genocide in Europe and for the future of the Western Alliance. And then Secretary of state Warre Christopher at a nato meeting in Brussels Belgium proclaimed that the Alliance was in wonderful shape. Nato is going to make itself relevant to the future he said. It had stronger structures that would help Deal with crises like Bosnia at an earlier  sure. The truth is that the Clinton administration has no meaningful policy now on Bosnia or on the other religious ethnic nationalist conflicts that menace Europe. And its policy on Russia once its proud est boast has been undone by president Yeltsin s increasingly nationalist stance All this is not just a bad Patch for Bill Clinton in foreign policy. It is a frightening absence of american strategy and Ameri can will the two factors that kept the peace in Europe for nearly 50 years. On the Domestic Side there is a similar sense of emptiness. Does anyone Counton Clinton to Lead the fight against mean spirited actions by the Republican leadership in Congress can anyone detect in him commitment to a set of Politi Cal values there Are values to defend Attis time lord knows values just As traditionally american As the ones the re publicans talk about. A commitment to civil liberties for one. A concern for the underdog for the stranger at the Gates. Immigration is a crucial example. Growing nativism is using Legal and illegal immigrants As scapegoats for economic troubles. Many republicans in Congress Are talking about a Federal version of California s proposition 187. The Washington Post carried a powerful article decrying the anti Immi Grant movement. Was it of a Clinton administration official or some other Lead ing Democrat no it was by William j. Bennett the conservative Republican. During the week another important voice opposed proposition 187 on the Federal level sen. Alan Simpson the conservative Republican from Wyoming. Since the election Clinton has made no Effort to counter the Radical Republican line that government is evil no Effort to remind americans How much they need government. To the contrary he has mimicked Republican ideas on budget cutting and  of defense. To write critically about the president is not easy for me. He has done Many Good things from Haiti to Gatt and has not had the credit he deserves. He has been savaged by a brutal opposition and by a press that even Newt Gingrich says has been very Tough on the presi Dent and on mrs. Clinton but Clinton faces a fundamental test now and he is not meeting it. After the election commentators said he might rally to smite the enemy like Harry tru Man How unlikely that Prospect seems today if he is going to be president he has to pull himself together and make some major changes in his administration. I think he has no More than a month or two to convince us that he cart. Govern. ,./-.- c now York times women a in 1st the women s movement has problems but women prominently identified with it Are not easy total to about those problems. When extraordinary positions taken by their Sisters Are cited the movement seniors tend to dismiss them As anomalies. They will Tell you that a cuckoo statement made by Gloria Stei nem for instance that american women live in a patriarchy in which the most dangerous Man in town in t the neighbouring marauder or rapist but their husband or Lover no More condemns the movement than Jesse Helms statement to the effect that president Clinton can t walk safely in North Carolina condemns the Republican movement. ". The technique is useful for on the spot handling of criticism but it cannot allay the widely held conviction that the women s movement is progressively in the hands of  asks what is left for the women s movement to accomplish that question is addressed to a society in which there is no limit to what a person can achieve arising out of her sex. But it is not a comprehensive answer because there Are still traces of what one can however reluctantly Call male  the woman who Calls the car dealer gives her selection and hears the voice at the other end of the Telephone say some thing on the order of Good Dearie. Now you get your husband to Call and confirm that  one suspects that kind of thing is happening less and less i unit is evidently still there and the Salesman on thew Onesin t necessarily 70 years old resonating patriarchal biases of yesteryear. Apparently he can be just a year or two out of  even if one accepts that such prejudices die hard Why do women need an organized movement which can t in any Case contend with telephonic Jim Crow / there Are Laws already out there on the statute books William f. Buckley that empower such As the woman Cia operative who sued the Agency charging sex discrimination and last week got a robust settlement. What else do they want the primary goal of organized women in America is of course to maintain and Broa Den Access to abortion. They want federally subsidized Abor Tion and opposition to the so called constraints e.g., parental notification by girls under 16. On this matter the women s movement is not in the least tolerant of other views not even those of other women. When gov. Robert Casey of Pennsyl Vania asked to be heard at the democratic convention in Newyork in 1992 so that he could plead the Case against making abortion the equivalent of asking for Pepsi cola instead of coca cola he was denied a platform. But if the women s movement is going to amount to merely pro Choice it will not have the Broad sympathy it enjoyed a generation ago when Bias against women was institutionalized in the folkways of american education and Commerce. One More salient of the current women s move ment has of course to do with full participation in Mili tary activity. A critic recently accosted a group of women s leaders and muttered that current leadership would be jubilant on the Day the commandant of the Citadel declared a school Holiday to celebrate her Abor Tion. By no Means All women favor women in combat. The other area in which the movement is Active is women s studies and Here there is great vulnerability. Professors Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge in their Book professing feminism give us a taste of feminine cosmology at the hands of the new leadership. Feminism aspires to be a totalizing scheme resting on grand theory one that is As All inclusive As marxism As assured of its ability to unmask hidden meanings As freudian psychology and As fervent in its condemnation of apostates As evangelical fundamentalism. Femi nist theory provides a doctrine of original sin the world s evils originate in male supremacy it regard the male s insistence on maintaining his own Power As the passkey that unlocks the mysteries of individual actions and institutional behaviour. And it offers a prescription for Radical change that is As simple As it is drastic reject whatever is tainted with patriarchy an replace it with something embodying gyn Centric Val ues.". " -. V Betty fr1edan, the author of the feminine mystique published More than 20 years ago seeks to defend the women s movement by citing the problems faced when she was a student and a postgraduate. But that is on the order of circumnavigating the problem of race quotas in schools by citing Jim Crow. It is a new Battlefield the women who Lead the current movement Aren t the moderate old timers and although men reasonably figure in the responsibility to make this Point itis dissenting women on whom one needs to rely even As it is in the hands of moderate Blacks to disavow extremist Black leadership c Universal press the opinion expressed in the column and cartoons on Thea Page rap resent Tho a of the author and Are in no Way to a considered a rep resenting Tho a of tha sur and strip or tha United Stata government