The Burlington Free Press from Burlington, Vermont • Page 6

17 EDITORIAL BOARD Opinion Page 6A Send letters to: Forum, The Burlington Free Press, Box 10, Burlington, Vt. 05402 James M. Carey President and Publisher Ronald L. Thornburg Editor Judith Diebolt Managing Editor Candace Page Editorial Page Editor Stephen Kiernan Editorial Writer Edward Bartholomew Controller P.O. Monday, June 28, 1993 1 Editorial Page Editor: Candace Page, 660-1867 Attack on Baghdad: A measured response the wars of the late 20th century, some soldiers wear civilian garb and commute to the battlefield by commercial airline.

They kill with car bombs not carbines. Terrorists are enemy soldiers nonetheless. When a foreign government dispatches plain-clothes killers to assassinate an American leader, their attack amounts to an act of war. No nation can tolerate such an assault without a response. Presented with evidence the Iraqi government plotted to assassinate former President Bush during his April visit to Kuwait, President Clinton retaliated with a cruise missile attack that destroyed part of Iraqi intelli- TESTING I 7D SE IF I TW'UOAtVMAK I THAT'S TW.

I pftoLlFEATiOA I vj If the facts are as President Clinton has stated them, the U.S. attack on Iraq was justified and proportionate. Forum he can devise. As one pundit put it, the world sends explosive wake-up calls but Saddam just hits the snooze alarm. However, the world is full of dangerous dictators who wish the United States ill.

Clinton's action broadcasts the message that the end of the Cold War finds the United States neither complacent nor asleep. Despite these words of support, we believe the president could have better informed his citizens before he acted about the seriousness of the Iraqi plot and the necessity for a response. Clinton achieved surprise at home as well as in Baghdad a military advantage and a political liability. If the president wants resolute support from Americans for warmaking, he needs first to convince them their security or sovereignty is under attack. Americans are uncomfortably aware that standing up to foreign assaults, real or imagined, lifts a president's popularity.

They're aware how badly Clinton needs that boost just now. They remember the Bay of Pigs, the Mayaguez incident, Grenada, the invasion of Panama all military forays by new presidents. Sometimes it seems that presidents go in search of a baptism by fire. A failed assassination plot isn't the sinking of the Lusitania or a landing on the beaches. The enemy isn't instantly visible; a sense of danger doesn't burst upon the nation in technicolor brilliance.

So the president needs to shine a light that exposes the enemy in the shadows. He must explain more detail how he became convinced that Iraq was pulling the strings that made the would-be assassins dance. Was Iraq's guilt inferred from the mechanisms of the car bomb, as some aides said Sunday? Or was there direct evidence? He can also explain why the United States chose a target surrounded by the homes of Iraqi civilians. If the point was measured retaliation, why not a military target outside the city? Americans instinctively support their president against a foreign enemy. But surely no president has ever understood so well as Bill Clinton, the former war protester, how that support has limits.

Americans don't follow mindlessly. They no longer delegate their decisions about right and wrong to the president, even when he invokes national security. If the president wants continued support for military sorties, he needs to spend more time explaining why they are vital to America's safety. Terry Bouricius Vt. should abolish Senate The farce surrounding legislative adjournment this spring said more about a flaw in the system than about the flaws of individual politicians.

We need to look at the structural problems rather than focus on personalities. Such unproductive face-offs are the result of a bicameral Legislature, that is, a legislative branch that is divided into two bodies: the House and the Senate. This division of legislative function is unnecessary, inefficient, and promotes anti-democratic behavior. Legislation desired by one body is "taken hostage" by power brokers in the other body to gain bargaining power for the final days of deal-making. Tremendous power devolves to a handful of legislators who negotiate the differences between the two bodies.

Good and necessary legislation is killed, not on its merits, but as the victim of power games. And because the decision-making process is complicated, voters have no way of knowing how to use their votes to shape public policy. A bicameral system is not inevitable. Before 1836 Vermont did just fine without a Senate. It is time to consider replacing the House and Senate with a single General Assembly once again.

The checks and balances of our system of government result from the division into three branches legislative, executive, and judicial not by the division of the General Assembly. People might assume that requiring a bill to pass both bodies leads to greater deliberation and beneficial compromises. In reality, just the opposite is often true. Deliberation falls by the wayside in favor of power-brokering. It is important to know why Vermont ended up with a bicameral system to judge whether we should keep it.

Early in the 19th century the Council of Censors, elected every seven years to monitor conformity with the Constitution and propose amendments, saw problems with the unicameral system. The General Assembly was not based On the principle of one-person one-vote as it is today, but on the principle that each town would have one or two seats. The Censors were concerned that the statutes of the state lacked stability with a new Legislature elected every year potentially reversing the actions of the previous Legislature. The Censors recommended the creation of a small Senate of older, wiser men who could engage in a more deliberative process. This recommendation was repeatedly rejected by Constitutional Conventions until 1835.

Sixty years ago Daniel Carroll, a University of Vermont political science professor, did an exhaustive study of Vermont's change from a unicameral to a bicameral Legislature. He noted that the rising, powerful banking interests were fearful of state regulation, and probably manipulated the process at the 1835 Constitutional Convention to create a Senate. The banking lobbyists preferred a bicameral system where they would only need to influence 1 5 senators in order to stop consumer-protection legislation. The Constitutional Convention passed the amendment creating a Senate by 116 to 113. Through a detailed comparison of the Legislature before and after the creation of the Senate, Carroll concluded that none of the supposed benefits of a bicameral system were actually achieved.

The Senate, which now has exclusive power to propose amendments to the Constitution, is unlikely to propose abolishing itself. But, unless we want to maintain an unresponsive, wasteful Legislature, returning to a single General Assembly is a re-form long overdue. Terry Bouricius, a member of the Progressive Coalition, is a state representative from Burlington. gence headquarters in Baghdad on Saturday night. In the facts are as Clinton has stated them, the U.S.

response was justified and proportionate. No American action is likely to deter Saddam Hussein from striking at the United States with whatever strategems U.S. Sen. James Jeffords 658-6001. (800) 835-5500 95 St.

Paul St. Suite 100 Burlington, VT 05401 U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy 863-2525. (800) 642-3193 Courthouse Plaza, 199 Main St.

Burlington, VT 05401 You can write any congressman at: U.S. Senate. Washington, D.C 20510 or House of Representatives Washington, O.C 20515 bent. Douglas raised his campaign money the old fashioned way he earned it by taking the high road and by earning the voters' trust, the trust that he is not beholden to anyone except the voters of Vermont. MARTY SEARIGHT Calais Expert opinion As a non-hunter unschooled in wildlife management, I must protest the Free Press editorial supporting legislative control of the moose hunt "Ignoring the people" (May 21).

I find that utilizing expert opinions to be wise, and it only seems prudent to weigh heavily the recommendations of our well-educated Fish Wildlife Department. To expect our representatives to determine the best course of action regarding wildlife is ridiculous. I believe the department tries above all to maintain healthy wildlife populations rather than meet the concerns of various interest groups. The Free Press incorrectly assumes that it speaks for all Vermonters. Most of us understand the importance of hunters in our state which no longer has the self-regulating forces of a natural ecosystem.

DEBORAH LYNCH Cambridge Free Press agenda After reading the May 21, 1993 Free Press editorial "Ignoring the People," any intelligent, rational person would realize that the writer's mind was made up and did not want to be confused by the facts. Of the seven points raised, all are absurd, and two are outright lies. I could respect the Free Press if it would at least admit its true agenda. The Burlington Free Press has, along with Ralph Wright, aligned itself with animal rights extremists from both in and outside of Vermont. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other such organizations with offices in Vermont want to stop not only hunting and fishing but also want to abolish pet ownership, meat eating, and any use of animals for research.

They are well-funded and powerful. The present controversy has little to do with hunting moose, but has a lot to do with a small, self-righteous group telling Vermonters how to live their lives. Will we, hunters and non-hunters alike, allow them to do that? STAN PEKALA Danville More Forum, Pago 7A "We have found the enemy and it is us." JOHN BROWN Essex Junction Slap in the face Now that the state of Vermont has negotiated a deal with Texas to dispose of our low-level radioactive waste in Texas, I see that a state geologist, Diane Conrad, still wants to spend our money to continue to look for a site in Vermont. Her reasoning, as stated in the June 16 Free Press article, is that "most of it's already funded." Apparently this money has been earmarked somewhere in the budget by the Public Service Board for this site search. I find it incomprehensible, in this tight fiscal time, that she would take this position.

Surely these funds could be reallocated somewhere else. In a time of state worker layoffs, level funding of education, and cutbacks in aid to the elderly and disabled, to spend this money on an unneeded search is a slap in the face to Vermont taxpayers. I encourage the Public Service Board to defer the planned search until such time as we actually need it. I'm sure in the meantime that the money could be put to far better use in serving Vermonters. STACEY SHARP Moretown Valuable reminder Most of us don't meet flaming, out-of-the-closet, off-the-wall bigots like Mona Charen very often.

As such, she's a valuable reminder that liberty and justice for all requires constant attention from the rest of us. Charen is unusual because she doesn't try to hide and disguise her ugly hatreds of all who don't agree with her "personally revealed half-truths." She's dishonest only in her arguments, not her purpose. So if the Free Press is taking a vote, keep her. She's the best demonstration possible of why we can never take democracy for granted. CONNIE KITE South Burlington Douglas' example If the Free Press really supports campaign reform why in the last election didn't it endorse Jim Douglas, candidate for the U.S.

Senate? He was the only statewide candidate to refuse both special interest PAC money and out-of-state money. The June 1 1 editorial said "Leahy set the example" by saying he would refuse PAC money in the future. The Free Press is wrong. Douglas set the example by not taking PAC money in the first place. It's easy to say you will not take PAC money three days before the election and when you are a well-heeled, 18-year incum Tax lies I am a conservative, so I routinely disagree with the Free Press' editorial stance.

The Free Press' principles are not mine, and when the Free Press talks about the military and a variety of other things, it knows not of what it speaks. However, the June 1 3 lead editorial "In defense of Bill" boggles the mind. The editorial weren't disappointed by the evaporation of the middle-class tax cut, because we never believed it to begin with." Courtesy of a Business Week article last June, intelligent voters knew that Clinton was lying on this subject during the campaign. Despite that, his campaign acted offended when Bush called him on this during a Some of those who protested (not the least of which Clinton himself) knew that Clinton was lying all along. Without this lie, Clinton likely would not have been elected.

The Free Press admits it knew he was lying, but it endorsed him Maybe, if our president takes the advice Mona Charen provides in her June 1 3 column, he will do some good while in office. Otherwise, the only good he will do is in making it easier for rational states to put conservative candidates in both houses of Congress. WILLIAM E. GOIN Burlington The real enemy The Gen. Harold Campbell incident has raised some issues about the presidency.

It is apparent that the American public and the press in particular just do not get it. Instead, since President Clinton's initial 100 days are over we have viciously attacked him. as we attacked Republican and Democratic predecessors alike. All presidential choices bring an attack. Whether or not Clinton had gone the length with Lani Guinier, some camp would have attacked.

Had he advocated a more severe punishment for Campbell or not commented, again wrong. Is it we, or is it he who does not get it? America is not taking lessons from the fractionalized federations of the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia to name a few. Our national cohesion need not come from fears of external French, British. Mexican, Japanese, German or Soviet attack. During World War II, Dorothy Sayers wrote a series of religious radio plays, one of which was called a Man Born to be King.

In the 1970s Sean Connery and Michael Caine starred in a film called a Man Who Would Be King. In the film, the deity-king is traditionally executed by the people a short time after assuming power. The attacks on the presidency are a sign of our national malaise. In the words of Walt Kelly, Other Views Clinton's economic program: A done deal For all the talk of a difficult conference still, ahead, the core of President Clinton's economic program is now a done deal. I House and Senate reconciliation bills would both produce afiout a half-trillion dollars in deficit reduction over the next five years.

The principal means would be a large tax increase for the rich, restoring some of the tax code's lost progressive edge. are the basic decisions. What's left is an intraparty dispute aWong Democrats (the Republicans having abdicated) around the eilges of the program. should the conferees do? Above all, they should stick to the half-trillion dollars in deficit reduction no fudging and keep the package progressive. They should spread the burden across the entire budget as well, which means sticking to the president's proposal tptsubject a larger share of Social Security benefits to the income tax.

far it survives in both bills. It would be a better final bill if the conferees would restore (for environmental as well as for revenue reasons) some of the energy tax that was lost in the Senate, and more of Jthe offsets the president proposed such as the food stamp program. But these are secondary issues. The Senate bill no less than the House bill is constructive. It would reverse 12 years of indifferent fiscal and social policy, fairly apportion tfee burden of steady deficit reduction, leave the economy in a stronger position and strengthen the government as well.

That's what the Senate Republicans and six Democrats voted against last week; it's what the rest of the Democrats commendably voted for, and what the party now seems likely to achieve. The Los Angeles Times SNEAKING OUT Agister your opinion with elected officials at the following numbers and addresses. Oov. Howard Dean: 828-3333 lbi State Montpelier, VT 05609 Governor' Action Line: 828-3347, (800) 649825 U.S. Rep.

Bernard Sanders 882-0697. (800) 339-9834 1 Church Burlington, VT 05401 ABOUT FORUM LETTERS: The Free Press welcomes original letters about issues of broad public interest. Most topics can be addressed in 200 words or less. Letters are edited for brevity and clarity. Authorship of all letters will be verified before they can appear, so please iatludc your home street address, sign your full name and include day and evjening telephone numbers.

WRITE TO: Forum, The Burlington Free Press, P.O. Box 10, Burlington, Vt. 05402-0010. The Free Press accepts letters by facsimile machine at 660-1 802. Please be sure your letter is clearly marked "Forum letter." Note to readers Mike Royko's column will return Thursday..