St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 24

6C ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH SUNDAY. AUGUST 16, 1992 -i i MIKE ROYKO ERIC MINK GOP Sets Sights On Hillary Clinton After Olympics, GOP Has Own Gymnastics i I if 1 1 I MM IV If I I 1, JUST because the Summer Olympics have ended doesn't mean you can't watch gymnastics on prime-time television this week. Instead of young, supple athletes executing dazzling routines on bars, beams, rings and mats, however, it'll be politicians twisting and turning on the podium and floor of the Astrodome in Houston as the Republican National Convention plays out Monday through Thursday. This is a preliminary event, of course, as were the gyrations of the Democrats in New York's Madison Square Garden last month.

This week's winners are already known President George Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle and the final competition is already scheduled for Nov. 3 nationwide. As it was from Barcelona, television will be on hand to provide a-long-way-from-Olympian coverage of the Republicans' quadrennial blowout, but there will be several differences between convention coverage and Olympics coverage: NBC paid $401 million for the exclusive U.S. television rights to the Barcelona Olympics. No network paid anything for exclusive TV rights to convention coverage (Republican or Democratic) because no one wants to have exclusive coverage, and the truth is that none of them is all that thrilled with non-exclusive coverage, either.

More people watched the prime-time Olympics coverage than any other programming available for the two weeks between July 26 and Aug. 9. If recent history is any guide, the Republican convention will be among the least-watched prime-time offerings of the week, as was the Democratic convention for its four days. Nevertheless, ABC, CBS, CNN, Comedy Central, C-SPAN, MTV, NBC, the Nostalgia Television, PBS and "The Tonight Show" all will be supplying American audiences with regular if not overly generous doses of convention coverage. Here's a rundown: PBS will offer the most comprehensive broadcast coverage available, with programming scheduled each night from 7 until events end at or around 10 o'clock.

For the first two hours of each night, Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer of PBS' "MacNeilLehrer NewsHour" will share the spotlight with NBC's Tom Brokaw and his contingent of floor and podium reporters. MacNeil and Lehrer will be in their New York studios, while Brokaw will be at NBC News' booth at the Astrodome. The NewsHour's estimable and amusing Mark Shields and David Gergen and NBC's John Chancellor, working what is likely to be the final political convention of his career, will offer com- CBS News plans coverage anchored by Dan Rather starting at 8:30 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, 9 o'clock on Wednesday and 8 o'clock on Thursday. Kevin Phillips and Joe Klein provide analysis.

"Face the Nation" and "Sunday Morning" will originate from Houston on Sunday, as will "CBS This Morning" and the "CBS Evening News" all four days. "The Tonight Show," mirroring its approach to the Democratic convention, will broadcast live all week and offer live exchanges between host Jay Leno and Tom Brokaw near the start of the show. Comic Paula Poundstone will contribute commentary and wry observations from the convention floor. On the cable side, C-SPAN, of course, will have essentially non-stop non-anchored and "non-commentaried" coverage of convention activities, including all the prime-time presentations and speeches from the podium. CNN will focus all its energies on the convention, with live coverage every night from 7 to 10 or thereabouts and daytime coverage of special convention sessions on Monday and Tuesday from 10 a.m.

to noon. All its regularly scheduled programs "Crossfire," "Crier "Larry King Live," "The Capital Gang" and, of course, "Inside Politics '92" will originate from Houston. CNN also boasts a superb stable of political analysts, including David Broder, Jack Germond, Ken Bode and William Schneider. The Comedy Central cable channel will attempt to skewer the Republicans for two hours a night starting at 8 p.m. Al Franken is the anchor and chief political correspondent for the coverage, while Calvin Trillin reports live from the convention floor and Merrill Markoe from the streets of Houston.

Other announced contributors include Ben Stein, Roy Blount Joe Bob Briggs and game- show legend Gene Rayburn, who'll play host of a bit called "Bite the Clock" in which quick-thinking conservative writer Norman Ornstein challenges competitors to come up with a better sound bite than he does. MTV continues its political coverage with hourly reports from the convention by correspondent Tabitha Soren and special guest reporter Ted Nugent. Dr. Ruth, who reported from the Democratic convention in New York, is gone, but the Nostalgia Television cable channel will persevere with hourly political updates from Houston from Jim Hartz and Arlene Herson, host of a New York City cable talk show. dreds more are returned to the same misfits.

That's because it is the policy of social agencies in most states that their top priority is keeping families together. Mom has a dope-sniffing boyfriend who can't stand crying infants? The boyfriend punches the child? Or shoves it into a tub of scalding-hot water? Mom sits there glassy-eyed and does nothing? The boyfriend also likes to have sex with another little daughter? Mom snores through it? This is a true story. And what was the social agency's solution, approved by the judge? Why, just teach Mom that it is her responsibility to prevent her boyfriend from trying to murder andor rape her kids. Then give the kids back to her. Is that nuts, or is that nuts? The reality is that there are countless children who are, through no fault of their own, in the clutches of parents who are stupidly cruel and dangerous.

They suffer. Many of them die. They belong in foster homes or with adoptive parents. It isn't merely a social problem. It is a national crisis.

But it's a crisis that legislatures, social agencies, law enforcement and the courts haven't been able to handle. And it's a crisis that the Republican chairman, a professional wise guy, hasn't said anything about, except to make smart-aleck remarks about Hillary Clinton wanting to break up families. Maybe he thinks that a family life in which an infant winds up with about 20 fractures (another case I wrote about) is better than no family life at all. They'll also pounce on Hillary Clinton's belief that children should have access to the courts. And they'll probably mention a case in Florida in which an adolescent boy sued his parents "for divorce," as the headline writers put it.

But they'll leave out the specifics. Yes, the boy's foster parents went to court in his behalf. But it wasn't a frivolous suit. The boy's father was an abusive drunk. The divorced mother had a long history of neglect.

And the state agency hadn't done much besides get forms filled out. So the boy said "enough," he wanted to remain in the stable home provided by the foster parents. The judge agreed. If that's baby-snatching, then we need more of it. Now, if the Republicans really believe what they've been saying about Hillary Clinton and children, maybe they ought to include something about it in their platform.

That would be the first time a political party came out in favor of child abuse. JUST IN the nick of time, with their convention about to begin, the Republicans have found their new Willie Horton. You can bet that all this week, the name of this dangerous person will be thrown around the convention hall by Republican orators. Hillary Clinton: Public Enemy Number One of the traditional American family. Actually, it's already started.

I've heard right-wingers describe her as a Nazi, a pinko, a baby-snatcher and a vicious, ambitious, grasping man-hater. At least they give her credit for versatility. Just this week. Rich Bond, the Republican national chairman, made a speech in which Hillary Clinton seemed to be a bigger target than her husband the candidate. To hear Bond tell it, Hillary thinks that as an institution, marriage is a modern-day Devil's Island.

Most of this seems to stem from her feminist activities and longstanding belief that children have legal rights and are not merely living, breathing hunks of parental property. But to hear the Republicans describe her, you get the impression that her goal should Bill Clinton become president is to rip every child in America out of its momma's arms and shove it into a government-run youth camp. Or to trot children into court to sue their parents because they've been deprived of the latest Nintendo game or were grounded for the weekend and told to stay off the phone. Which shows a certain desperation on the part of the Republicans. Using Willie Horton as a campaign tool might have been unfair, but at least he was a genuine rapist and thug.

But Hillary Clinton is not a baby-snatcher. If she is, then so am because I share some of Hillary Clinton's concerns. As some readers of this column may have noticed, nothing gets my blood pressure soaring like child-abuse cases. Especially those in which some social agency or judge treats it like a parking ticket. I've written about kids who have been beaten, scalded, sexually abused, only to be returned to the same parent or parents who did these terrible things.

And I've written about these same kids after it happened again and they ended up dead. I've had the satisfaction of forcing some indifferent or incompetent officials out of Family Court. But after the kid is dead, that's a hollow victory. I have a physician friend who specializes in treating abused children. And she tells me that for every damaged child who is rescued from abusive parents, hun Dan Rather mentary and analysis.

The presence of MacNeil could well be considered a special advantage. On the July 10 edition of the "MacNeilLehrer NewsHour," MacNeil conducted the best-informed, most substantive and toughest one-on-one television interview with Bush I've ever seen and it was done under difficult physical conditions: live, by satellite, with MacNeil in New York and the president in Helsinki, Finland. After 9 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, PBS and NBC will go their separate ways, with PBS continuing its coverage and NBC's bunch starting up their own. Thursday night, NBC splits off at 8:30.

ABC will have Peter Jennings and David Brinkley anchoring its prime-time coverage of the convention running from 8:30 to 10 p.m. Monday, 9 to 10 on Tuesday and Wednesday, and 8 to 10 on Thursday. Sunday's edition of "This Week With David Brinkley" will originate from Houston, with Brinkley scheduled to interview President Bush. "World News Tonight' and Ted Koppel's "Night-line," fresh from its two-part investigation of the Ross Perot campaign, also will broadcast from the Astrodome on convention days. Jl I III Ml.

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CHARLES, MO. Sbsribe Now' BY DAVID HENRY HWANG hi1 cxnlir. rur sior nf ihr lonmnlic olrviiHi liirh It-ii I iv (lij)lumal In intcniiilioiiiil In honor of our 10th anniversary the Fabulous Fox Theatre says Thank You St. Louis! I 1992 with a festival of FREE events I jr. September 9-13 0 10am-2pm Visit the splendor of the Fabulous Fox again, or for the very first time! 0 Free continuous tours! 0 Free organ concerts on the mighty Wurlitzer by St.

Louis favorite Stan Kann at 10am noon! 0 Free PERS and popcorn! 0 Free Fox souvenir! BY BRAM STOKER ADAPTED BY CHARLES MOREY lir iiisii)iiiiic uml rliilliiif; liilc nf crciiluivs ul llir nijilil to li ihirniiiji lilt'. A funny thing happened on the way to the forum BOOK BY BURT SHEVELOVE AND LARRY GELBART MUSIC AND LYRICS BY STEPHEN SONDHEIM Uolm-I oiiihmIv anil nillirkinj! sliriiiiniiuiii'. In Si'iIicii Similliriiii liiMrmii. iiinMr anil itiirriiiiiii'. lyrio.

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION BY JOHN CUARE Tin1 iiiM'tllim: uri'uiinl nf jriflril oini2 run 111IM lin irri nil W'k hum iri ilrjiril liiniilir-. II It 0 Open house, 10am-2pm (sec above) 0 Free organ concert by Slan Kann, 2pm 0 Free movie "The Gay Divorcee" starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, a 0 Open house, 10am-2pm (sec above) 0 Doors open at 5pm for special Anniversary Celebration with the St. Louis Cardinals 0 Meet special Cardinal guest 0 Free hot dogs to first 1,000 visitors courtesy of Hunter Hot Dogs, the official hot dog of Busch Stadium 0 Free O'Douls courtesy of Lohr Distributing 0 Sports Hall of Fame exhibit 0 "Cardinal Centennial Celebration" 7pm MO 0 Open house, 10am-2pm (see above) 0 Happy Hour begins at 5pm with special drink prices and free popcorn 0 Free O'Douls courtesy of Lohr Distributing 0 Live music provided by Dk Blue Lightning Dip' 0 Free movie "Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll" filmed at the Fox in 1986, BY ALAN AYCKBOURN liilannii- rl n-i ii l' iujr -m ini iiiini'iK IViini llir irn ul' Itriliiin illicit riinlriiiiiit'iir PYGMALION BY CEORGE BERNARD SHAW Tlir ilinnrliralK funny l'uir inli' of I In rnckiiry HmviT ir anil llir puiiipon irii'rsiir. mi TiTTjTTi Tr Open house, I0am-2pm (see above) 0 Free family movie "The Land Before Time," 0 Free organ concert by Stan Kann, (doors open 6pm) Fox Tellerettes perform on stage, 0 Free movie "Singin" In The Rain," 0 Open house, 10am-2pm (see above) 0 Free organ concert by Stan Kann, 2pm 0 Free silent movie "The Phantom of (he Opera" starring Lon Chaney and accompanied by Stan Kann, 0 Free Fox birthday cake courtesy of Pratzel's, following the movie i SEASON SUBSCRIBERS SAVE 20 GUARANTEE YOUR SEATS NOW FOR THE ENTIRE 1992-93 SEASONI SUBSCRIBER TICKET EXCHANGE PRIVILEGES PROVIDE FLEXIBILITY! All events are free and open to the public, cameras welcome. Seating for the movies and Cardinal video limited to the capacity of the theatre.

Tickets will be given out when the doors open for each event one ticket per person, no pass-outs. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Parking donated by Grand Center on their lots west of Grand Blvd. For more information, call the Fox at 534-S444. mm.