From: riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,misc.legal
Subject: Re: NO! President Bill, 72% of Americans are NOT lawyers!
Date: 23 Jan 93 01:46:26 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc,misc.legal
Distribution: usa
Organization: LNK Corporation, Riverdale, MD

In article <1993Jan22.054522.21869@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <13949@optilink.COM> cramer@optilink.COM (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan17.061634.6084@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
>># Thirteen out of eighteen have law degrees.  One might more properly
>># ask what happened to the other five, given the importance of a law
>># degree to dealing with the field of law, but let's look at Ipser's
>># objection more closely.
>># 
>># All of the eighteen graduated college.  Presumably, Ipser would wish
>># that only nine of them have, and that two or three of the others have
>># failed to graduate high school.
>>
>>Clinton's liberal quota ideology claimed that the Cabinet should
>>"look like America" but for some reason, this same reasoning
>>doesn't apply about education.
>
>Clinton never had a quota.  He had a goal of diversity.  Diversity by
>ethnic group, geography, and ideology has been common since the beginning
>of democracy in making appointments.  What Clinton proposed to do is
>expand this diversity beyond white males by including qualified women 
>and minorities in the process.
>
>No one has ever suggested that educational diversity is a good thing.
>You're creating a strawman.  Care to address real arguments?

	Hey, guys, let's cut through the B.S., if you don't mind, here.

	1. Overall, Clinton has done well by his Cabinet appointments. He has
	a good mix of experience, substantive knowledge, and (I think) 
	political savvy, as well as (I hope) creativity. But this "diversity"
	stuff has been a drag on an otherwise creditable job.

	2. Did Ted know that the attorney general nominee appoointment was
	withdrawn before he posted ? It strikes me that this appointment
	has been gored specifically because of the political strife over
	appointing a woman to this position. Better it would have been to allow
	Bill to appoint Hillary to the job than to hawk the attorney 
	generalship among judges who don't want it, ideologues who want it,
	but don't support Bill Clinton's moderate agenda, and the late Zoe
	Baird, who suffered the fate of many "hurry up" Republican candidates -
	and got through the screening process, only to end up embarrassing
	the new administration. Clinton did the right thing by acting quickly
	and aggressively to terminate the candidacy.

	3. Obviously, you really kinda need a lawyer to be the Attorney 
	General. Let's look at some of the others:

		a. Either Les Aspin the economist or Sam Nunn the strategist
		 were going to end up as Secretary of Defense. In a 
		cost-driven defense establishment, Clinton chose economics
		over strategy. Expect Aspin to drill the programmatics and
		Nunn to continue to drive the creativity boat from Capitol
		Hill, tacking add-ons to every program in sight. We'll see
		how Les handles recissions (better than Cheney ?). Anyway,
		Aspin is a good man and he has good people around him. So,
		for that matter, does Nunn. It'll be a great show, let me tell
		ya.

		b. Not so wonderful is the latest in a long line of 
		"establishment lawyers" to take over the State Department,
		Warren Christopher. (These include Dean Acheson, John Foster
		Dulles, and Cyrus Vance). Christopher has several strikes 
		against him:

			(1) He managed to get through four years as Deputy
			Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter, Zbig Brzezinski,
			and Cy Vance without becoming disgusted and quitting.
			Whatever else you can say about Christopher, the man
			is a team player.

			(2) Christopher's integrity is questionable. According
			to WETA's morning broadcast, He was Zoe Baird's
			"mentor", and did not squelch her nomination when the
			undocumented aliens issue came to light (Christopher
			was head of the Clinton transition team). Moreover,
			the "October Surprise" report released by Congress
			a few days ago reportedly makes reference to 
			a claim that Christopher conceived of an "arms for 
			hostages" deal with Iran in 1980, in an attempt to 
			get the embassy hostages released.

			(3) The man is just not a player, politically. He is
			likely to become as ineffective in the policy wars
			as Dean Rusk and Cy Vance were (Lest I be accused of
			partisanship, let's thrown in Bill Rogers of the Nixon
			Administration, as well). He is certainly no Henry
			Kissinger, nor is he a James Baker. 

			(4) Unfortunately, Clinton does not appear to have a
			strong team in his NSC staff either. Anthony Lake is
			a good man, but the problem is that the Democrats have
			not had enough time on the executive side to develop
			the kind of midlevel policy advocates that are the 
			lifeblood of the NSC staff. Lake needs to reach into
			foreign service, the CIA, and the military to get this
			kind of talent - and such people will come in with
			the perspective of their parent institutions, not
			a "New Generation of Leadership". The "Best and the
			Brightest", I'm afraid NOT.

		c. Ron Brown and Lloyd Bentsen are the crown jewels in 
		Clinton's cabinet. Yeah, they're lawyers - but more than that,
		Clinton, who seems to care about the domestic economy with
		the obsession that George Bush had for foreign policy, has put
		his First Team of sharp politicians in the key economy-related
		cabinet slots. Good move, equivalent to making James Baker
		the Secretary of State - and it doesn't matter the race or
		gender here.

		d. Riley is an outsider and apparently knows and cares a lot
		about education - another of Clinton's priorities. A white
		male, to be sure, but what the heck ?

		e. Now, Robert Reich, whose works I have read and criticized
		heavily in these fora, is about as clear-headed as anyone I
		can think of with respect to the future of American labor.
		Smart, forward-thinking choice. Is Reich a lawyer ?
		You couldn't tell it from the classes he teaches, or the books
		he writes, but strictly speaking, he's no economist.

>>Once again, liberal enthusiasm for judging people by the color
>>of their skin, instead of the content of their character, shows
>>itself.
>
>And what's the qualitative difference between what Clinton said,
>and Nixon's 1968 promise to nominate a Southerner to the Supreme Court?
>Oh, I forgot -- Clayton thinks Nixon was a liberal.

	Well, the bottom line is that Presidents will be Presidents. One
sure way to deemphasize the role of a segment of public policy is to put
weak people in key positions (i.e. foreign policy). I do not believe that
this was Bill Clinton's intention with respect to the Department of Justice,
but unless his administration gets its act together and concentrate on getting
the best person who is politically acceptable to do the job, he'll repeat
Nixon's record on that Supreme Court nomination, which took three tries,
and ended up with Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade, in the end.
It could be the case that neither the public's interests, nor Bill Clinton's
political interests will be well served by continued adherence to a 
preconcieved political notion, which has apparently become a promise, in the
minds of feminist politicos.

Bill R.

--

"When up a dangerous faction starts,         "My opinions do not represent
With wrath and vengeance in their hearts;     those of my employer or
By solemn League and Cov'nant bound,          any government agency."
To ruin, slaughter, and confound;             - Bill Riggs (1992)
To turn religion to a fable,
And turn the Government to a Babel;
Pervert the law, disgrace the gown,
Corrupt the senate, rob the crown;
To sacrifice old England's glory,
And make her infamous in story.
When such a tempest shook the land,
How could unguarded virtue stand ?"
- Jonathan Swift (1732)

Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.theory