There's Backwards and there's . . .

BurkeWords

Monday, November 10, 1997

A Message to All Veterans

Quote of the Week:

"If they had wanted some, all they had to do was ask."

Those words were uttered by a high school soccer star in NYC last week after he was shot by a fed for carrying an unopened Three Musketeers bar. The feds were in the area on a drug bust, and one mistook the silver wrapper for a gun.

I don't know how coherent the soccer player was when he said this.

Washington Vs Murphy Brown II

This is the second story because I didn't want it lost in the election coverage. It had been the lead, until I saw the above quote.

Murphy Brown smoking marijuana on last week's episode has sparked an outcry from Drug czar Thomas Constantine. Good for him. I hope he doesn't buy the producer's line that the "marijuana was secondary" to the story, which they claim was about one friend coming to another's aid.

If that were, in fact, the case, then why didn't the storyline follow this outline: Murphy feels miserable; Murphy can't get any relief; Jim feels bad, tries to help; nothing works, nothing helps. Last scene: Jim shows up with a "nickel bag, my eye" of pot for Murphy; they exchange a few jokes; Jim, who never entered the house, leaves and closes door; Murphy heads upstairs, maybe pausing to get some matches. Fade out.

Now that would have been all about one friend loving another and helping out any way he could. In that scenario, the pot would actually have been secondary, they could have raised the "medicinal" marijuana issue, had a few quick laughs and no one would have had to smoke dope on TV in front of impressable youngsters. (Anyone remember the family hour? Guess what time "Murphy Brown" airs.)

The usual suspects in D.C. were claiming for weeks that this election would be a reflection of how next year's Congressional races would go. Well, the major races all went Republican, and the Beltway gang is back-pedaling somewhat. Leave it to Clinton to find a silver lining: when the economy's good, voters re-elect the incumbents. Therefore, Clinton is taking full credit for Republican winners that merely held on to Republican seats.

I give Clinton credit as well: his off-year endorsements are usually the Kiss of Death. Anyone remember 1993, the year before the Republican takeover of Congress?

Furthermore, Clinton's excuse may work for New York City and New Jersey, but what about Virginia and Staten Island where the seats were open?

Hear's a great line I heard numerous times: it was all about money. The Republicans poured tons of money into Staten Island, the Democrats didn't have any to dump. That's because the DNC is millions in debt. Why? Maybe because they spent it all on TWO YEARS worth of anti-Gingrich and anti-Dole commercials. Maybe because President Clinton kept most of the money they raised last year to spend on his own re-election. Maybe because they spent lots of money they obtained illegally and had to give it all back.

Mayor Guiliani had lots more money that Ruth Messinger as well. Money was obviously the difference. It had absolutely nothing to do with all the major Democratic figures switching sides very early on.

Bill Clinton has one thing to be thankful for in Staten Island. The anti-fast track candidate lost. The pro-fast track candidate won. He rushed to Washington where he was sworn in in plenty of time for Friday's fast track vote.

Too bad it didn't help him any.

The funniest part of this Congressional race was the Democratic Party's claim that they had found a "Dream Candiate" who was opposed to abortion (they never called him "Pro-life" and certainly not "Anti-choice"), against gun control and basically fit the conservative Staten Island mold. Hell, this guy even co-authored the New York State Death Penalty law. How much more conservative can you get than that?

What were the party bosses thinking? That the Republican crowd would vote for the imitation Republican instead of the real McCoy? That the rank-and-file Democrats wanted a guy like this to go to work for Gephardt and Bonoir? Get real.

Okay, this one ticks me off to the extreme.

Why is it that Gov. Whitman's name is constantly mentioned as a possible Vice Presidential candidate for 2000? Is there some sexist reason why she couldn't be a Presidential candidate? Yes, Dole had considered her. (At least, that's what I've heard. Who knows?) But in 2000, she'll have seven years as governor under her belt, which counts for a hell of a lot more than Geraldine Ferraro had when Walter "The country's ready for a woman Vice President" Mondale (emphasis mine) selected her as a running mate.

The answer to my question, of course, is that Whitman would never get the Republican nomination. Moderates usually don't, and a moderate that "folds like a cheap camera" (to quote Bob Grant) certainly won't.

Whitman's problem wasn't that she alienated ultra-conservatives. Her problem was that she alienated conservatives. Still, she's better than McGreevy by a long shot.

Of course, there is one woman whose name is being dropped for a shot at leading a major party's ticket: Elizabeth Dole. Unfortunately, the man dropping the name was her husband, Bob, who's still looking to get inside the White House, even if he's not the one in charge.

The only problem I see with this is timing. Can you imagine what female Democrat might throw her hat in the ring in 2000 should Ms. Dole run? Does the name "Hillary" pop forward? I bet it pops into her head.

As I pointed out long ago on the Joke-of-the-Day page, there's a big difference between the two. One of them was once in the line of succession to be the President, and one of them already thinks she is.

Mayor Guiliani has just been re-elected and now he has to look for another job. Because of term limits, he can't serve again. And, some say, because of term limits, he got to keep his job. After all, why bruise yourself running against a popular incumbent when you can wait and have it handed to you.

So here's the deal.

Public advocate Mark Green was re-elected in a landslide, but has his sights set on Sen. Al D'Amato's seat in 1998. The public advocate used to be called the City Council President, but after the City Charter was declared unconstitutional and rewritten, the office was reduced to two duties: break ties in a 51-seat City Council (mostly all Democrats) and succeed the Mayor should he leave office.

City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, who would be the likely successor to the Mayor if the public advocate's office were abolished (a geniune possibility, particularly if Green leaves the office), may run for the Governor's office, thus vacating his chair.

Now why do I bring this up? Is the Mayor going anywhere? Well, when he retires in 2001, there won't be much going on. But in 2000, there will be a Senatorial and Presidential race going on. If he's still grounded in reality, he'll try to unseat Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. If he succeeds, who will succeed him as Mayor? Some unknown City Council member? It should be interesting to watch.

Two Words I Really Don't Need To Hear Again

Au pair.

Anyone else had enough of this?

Thanks to the magic of this column being late, I am aware of the "final" outcome to this case. Not that I followed the case. In fact, lately, I've tried to avoid it -- like that's possible.

Overall impressions:

Barry Scheck should be taken out and shot. Or at least held in some kind of contempt. First he argues that the jury shouldn't have the Manslaughter count to consider. They return murder and he pleads that it should be reduced. To Manslaughter. He took a gamble and lost. Should his client suffer for it? Well, look at it this way: should she get a second chance?

The jurors should be taken out and shot. Or at least held in some kind of contempt. These folks took an oath and then apparently forgot what they were swearing at. Members of this jury have gone on the record as saying that they wanted to charge her with something and murder was all they had. They didn't think she should just be let go. But that's not their job! Their job was to decide whether she committed Second Degree Murder beyond a reasonable doubt. It was their duty to let her go if they thought "she did something" but not murder.

The au pair agency should be taken out and shot. Or put out of business. Or sued for negligence. Ooops, Funny thing is that they are being sued for negligence and whatever else the lawyers come up with. Here's the real dirt. According to WABC-NY, 770 AM's Lionel, the agency (which paid the attorney's fees in this case) wanted the verdict to be Acquittal or Murder, but not Manslaughter. Get this reasoning: acquittal helps the negligence case; murder also helps the lawsuit because it would have been the unpredictable act of a single person, but manslaughter is evidence of negligence on the part of the agency for their failure to train the au pair properly.

Confused enough. Can't wait for all the appeals.

Too Much News to Fit and Print

Once again, I've had to cut this shorter than I wanted to. I was out of the office for the better part of a week now, so I haven't been able to keep up with the news stories. And of the ones I kept up with, I wasn't able to condense, rewrite and capsulize all the ones I wanted in the way I wanted. Hopefully, I can use some of the stories next week, but many of them will be dated. And I still have to gather news and opinions for next week's column.

Till then.