St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 18

2B ST.LOUEPtET-DISRATCH SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, EDITORIAL Founded by JOSEPH PULITZER December 12, 1878 JOSEPH PULITZER, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1878-1911 JOSEPH PULITZER, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1912-1955 JOSEPH PULITZER EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1955-1986, CHAIRMAN 1979-1993 WILLIAM V. WOO, EDITOR 1986-1996 HIE POST-DISPATCH PLATFORM I KNOW THAT MY RETIREMENT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN ITS CARDINAL PRINCIPLES, THAT IT WILL ALWAYS FIGHT FOR PROGRESS AND REFORM, NEVER TOLERATE INJUSTICE OR CORRUPTION, ALWAYS FIGHT DEMAGOGUES OF AIL PARTIES. NEVER BELONG TO ANY PARTY, ALWAYS OPPOSE PRIVILEGED CLASSES AND PUBLIC PLUNDERERS, NEVER LACK SYMPATHY WITH THE POOR, ALWAYS REMAIN DEVOTED TO THE PUBLIC WELFARE, NEVER BE SATISFIED WITH MERELY PRINTING NEWS, ALWAYS BE DRASTICALLY INDEPENDENT, NEVER BE AFRAID TO ATTACK WRONG, WHETHER BY PREDATORY PLUTOCRACY OR PREDATORY POVERTY. MICHAEL E. PULITZER, CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT NICHOLAS G.

PENNIMAN IV, PUBLISHER TERRANCE C.Z. EGGER, GENERAL MANAGER COLE C. CAMPBELL EDITOR RICHARD K. WEIL MANAGING EDITOR EDWARD A HIGGINS, EDITOR OF THE EDITORIAL PAGE April 10, 1907 JOSEPH PULITZER 900 North Tucker Boulevard 63101 (314) 340-8000 (. I For President of the United States Bill Clinton "I or this newspaper, the test of fitness for office is not a candidate's political party or oratorical skills but how close he or she comes to sharing the public policy objectives embraced by the Post-Dispatch platform, which appears at the top of this page.

If these Comparing current conditions to what they were when Clinton took office in January of 1993 objectives were reduced to a single phrase, it would be: the pursuit of political, social and economic justice. In 1992, we believed that Bill Clinton reflected those ideal.s better than President George Bush or Ross Perot We endorsed him early and enthusiastically. In the four years since, President Clinton has not always fulfilled the high hopes we had for candidate Clinton. He has vacillated on issues large and small, and at times he has conducted himself like a man with something to hide. Nevertheless, we think he is still a better choice than Bob Dole or Mr.

Perot for leading the country across the threshold of the new millenium. Mr. Clinton's saving grace, the rock upon which he has founded his political career, is a profound and lasting commitment to a central belief: Politics is an honorable calling. We back President Clinton for re-election because he is an effective politician, not despite it. Michael Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard, has said: "When politics goes well, we can know a good in common that we cannot know apart" Unfortunately, the current state of public discourse undervalues politicians because the great ones, like the president, are at once alluring and repelling.

We are drawn to President Clinton's flattery of our better selves and his exhortations that we move past personal interests to embrace a common good. His words resonate with our joy when he congratulates D-Day veterans on the bluffs of Normandy and our sorrow when he consoles families ripped apart by terrorists in Oklahoma City, We are puzzled, or disdainful, or angry, when he adapts to the political realities of the moment moving from one position to another, usually without explanation or apology. His retreat from the nomination of Lani Guinier to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department is a sad example of backing down too quickly in the face of opposition. Whitewater, Travelgate and Filegate have raised doubts about his integrity or about the integrity of those around him. However, throughout his first term, Mr.

Clinton has been consistently committed to the nation's best interests. He has promoted tolerance and healing. He has encouraged community service, through such initiatives as the AmeriCorps national service program. He understands government's appropriate role in improving education, protecting the environment and creating social conditions that enable people to live fuller lives. He backed the Family Leave Act and the earned income tax credit, which gives tax relief to the working poor.

He has pursued, albeit with uneven timeliness and effectiveness, restoring democracy in Haiti, ending bloodshed in Somalia and Bosnia and securing lasting peace in the Mideast and Ireland. He has advanced free trade through the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He has demonstrated considerable courage, moving against powerful forces that no president before him was willing to take on. He defied the gun lobby, putting the weight of his office behind the Brady bill and the proposal to outlaw certain categories of so-called assault weapons. He took on the equally influential tobacco lobby when he announced his campaign to keep children from smoking.

Moreover, instead of yielding to public prejudice, he stood by affirmative action, and he attempted to end discrimination against homosexuals in the military. To the extent that Mr. Dole shares any of these goals, he believes they can be achieved if government plays a passive role, which he would facilitate through an across-the-board tax cut. Though most activities are better left to individuals and the private sector, the country's history teaches us that, without an active public sector, economic growth will be uneven and social Darwinism will take hold. Mr.

Dole has made much of Mr. Clinton's 1992 promise to sponsor a tax cut for middle-class Americans, a promise that turned into a tax increase. Though there is no denying that he broke the promise, the nation is better off for his having done so. Mr. Clinton reversed himself because economists and Wall Street investment bankers advised him that immediate action to drive the deficit down was crucial.

Against unanimous Republican opposition, he pushed through a tax increase that, combined with an improving economy and a modest slowdown in government spending, produced significant declines in the budget deficit. Do Americans want to risk four years of progress in deficit reduction by embracing Mr. Dole's proposal to cut taxes by $548 billion over the next six years? Mr. Dole claims that lower taxes will stimulate economic growth, which in turn will produce additional tax revenue to help offset the lost income. Americans were seduced by that siren song in 1981, and they got mammoth deficits as a result.

The president's plan to guarantee health insurance for every American, though thwarted by the illness lobby, was rooted in an authentic sense of justice and compassion. The particulars of his plan may be validly criticized, but he deserves credit for being the first president since Harry S. Truman to seek a comprehensive answer to the health insurance question. The proposal's defeat does not mean that the problem has gone away. Indeed, it will only get worse; encouragingly, the president has promised to return to the issue.

Mr. Clinton's reward for pushing through a deficit-reduction package and trying to solve the health insurance problem was the transfer of control of Congress from Democrats to Republicans in the 1994 elections. Since then he has engaged the Republicans in house-to-house combat over the environment, education, Medicare, Medicaid, school lunches and more. Along the way, however, Mr. Clinton unwisely accepted a balanced budget timetable that would devastate government services if adhered to.

And, after vetoing two punitive welfare bills, he signed a third one that was only marginally less cruel. Would that the president who took on the gun lobby and the tobacco lobby had refused to capitulate to the public's hostility toward the poor. Yet his demonstrated willingness to engage in problem solving, his openness to ideas and his belief in a society of shared challenges and shared responsibilities recommend him over either Mr. Dole, who offers few ideas and has done a certain amount of shifting from one position to another himself, or Mr. Perot, who is little more than a public scold.

In a second term, we would hope that Mr. Clinton would stick to the courage of his convictions and help craft and legitimize a more meaningful form of politics. He has the skills. We hope he can find the will, because politics remains a calling whose honor lies in the hands of those who respond to the call. Mi Jif.iWk i21 tta LAcrrr- ifftSr.

touts resr-PisPATcH To Keep Lighting The Way.