The Tampa Times from Tampa, Florida • 10

Sty? Samp Slimes age- 1 OA, Friday, November 9, 1 979 Good politics means bad theater at HCC itm wrtai making other administrators accountable on rules of procedures, problems like deciding what Scaglione's political assistant does to earn his keep, problems like pinning down conflicts of interest on campus SEEKING RAVE NOTICES, but bracing for a pan, The Incredible Flip-Flop played again this week at Hills- borough Community College. It was, indeed, a farce, but nobody applauded for a curtain call. Ted's performance delights Carter hands Well, one of the actors applauded, but that was understandable. He was so pleased that his ploy worked that he just had to let his comrades know how glad he was to remain on center-stage for another half-year. One of two conclusions, perhaps even both of them, could be drawn from the Wednesday meeting of the HCC Board of Trustees: The pressures were enormous for an about-face on the ouster of HCC President Frank Scaglione and the trustees caved in under those pressures.

The trustees were so weak and indecisive that when the strong-willed Ron Cacciatore left early because of pressing business the remaining trustees folded into the resulting vacuum and accepted the kind offer, of Mr. Scaglione to stick around until a permanent president is hired in five or six months. Keep in mind, now, that on the heels of a devastating probe last spring by The Tampa Tribune and a subsequent, damaging state audit, the trustees had asked Scaglione to quit as president of Florida's most political community college. He refused and doubledog dared his bosses to do anything about it while his per-year contract remained in force. They responded by hiring a lawyer and planning to bring charges against Scaglione so that they could pry him out of office and hire a temporary president to clean the mess while a national search was under way for a permanent president.

Scaglione's refusal to resign obviously was a holding action. He couldn't bail out on all the good ole boys who put him where he is today. So he tried a ploy. He wrote a letter to the board saying he would step aside as soon as a permanent president is hired, staying on, of course, through his contract period next June 30, "to assist the new president in a consulting capacity. He simply wanted "to permit an orderly transition to the new president and avoid the inevitable problems that would result from a hasty changeover to an interim president." And here's the clincher: "I would also be assured of the continuation and completion of the plans and programs which my administration has instituted." Naturally, you say, the trustees 5 would see through this little ploy.

Of course there would be "inevitable problems" that would result from a "hasty changeover" problems like competition with Jimmy Carter gets serious in Iowa early next year. He is right in the sense that the press, on its own, will not "keep the story alive" even if it is so inclined without new material. And Kennedy is not going to provide that material. On the contrary, the words and phrases he is using in interviews about Chappaquiddick today are in many cases identical to those he used at the time of the accident 10 years ago and again in extensive interviews with the Boston Globe five years ago. Thus, there are only two developments that might keep the question in the forefront of the campaign.

One is that one of the others in the group the night Mary Jo Kopechne died will change his or her story about what happened. Fat chance. The other is that one of the other candidates, Democrat or Republican, will press the issue openly and provide the fodder for further stories and broadcasts. That possibility is less remote. i At this point, the Carter White House is taking the high road and leaving the issue alone, but it was obvious that the President's political managers were at least privately delighted by the universally poor reviews Ken nedy was given on the television broadcast.

"were concentrating on the mayoral elections we don't build our base, it doesn't matter about the presidential campaign." Others reported that the reaction broke along the lines you would expect from supporters of Kennedy and President Carter. As Olivia Maynard, the Democratic chairman for Michigan, put it: "It really depended on what kind of eyes were looking at the show." But there was also an obvious appreciation among the professionals of the strategy Kennedy is using in trying to confront the issue and dispose of it early in the game. Maine's Democratic chairman, Harold Pachios, notes, for example, that once all the. reporters have had their innings in questioning Kennedy about Chappaquiddick, the issue could vanish. "There's only so much you guys can do in terms of that story," he said.

"Every time Mudd sees him for the next six months, he can't ask those same questions." This is a shrewd analysis of both Kennedy's strategy and the workings of the press in dealing with Chappaquiddick. Although he is clearly uncomfortable in facing up to the issue, Kennedy obviously has decided to take the bitter pills now on the theory that the worst will be behind him by the time the and the misuse of public funds in high places. Of course the trustees, being men and women of reasonable intelligence, would not fall for anything such as this. Of course they would recognize the hazards of trying to find a professional educator-administrator to try to take the helm of a leaky ship with a mutinous crew plotting in the galley and the old captain looking over his shoulder. But, can you believe, the trustees did buy it.

hook, line and sinker. Hilman Bowden, who just can't stand a confrontation, signaled retreat. Col-' leen Bevis and Chairman Jerry Harvey joined him. Lee Elam was absent. Mr.

Cacciatore had left earlier in the meeting, thinking that there was a solid 2-1 vote to keep sailing the frigate in the same direction. He was shocked to find out later what had happened. And we can imagine his utter frustration might bring about thoughts of resignation. But we hope he sticks. He who flips in one direction can also flop in another.

The trustees, when they meet again, should realize the error of their ways. Unless charges are brought against Scaglione and he is suspended pending disposition of the charges, nothing is going to change. Hillsborough, Community College will remain the laughing stock of Florida, the place where politics is supreme and the good ole boys rule the roost no matter what the people want If there is any evidence of unlawful pressure, if there are people with facts who believe there might be some shady conspiracies in the stonewalling of the HCC administration, if there is wrongdoing and personal use of public money, then: 1. There should be a grand jury investigation on the state or on the federal level. 2.

The joint legislative audit committee of the Florida House, and Senate should call Scaglione and his administrators on the carpet to explain the recent critical audit. 3. While the search is under way for a permanent president of HCC, the trustees should see the light once again, file the appropriate charges, suspend Scaglione, and install an interim president to help them deal with the mess which has evolved over the 10-year history of the community college. Good politics sometimes means bad theater. If the script can't be rewritten, perhaps the play ought to be canceled.

offices of a Jewish professor at the University of South Florida recently. In Tampa, the haters were merely content to spray-paint swastikas on walls and destroy a few books and things. In Greensboro, they went after blood. But even blood will not satisfy hate. It is given birth by the union of ignorance and fear, and grows rapidly thereafter, constantly looking for new feeding grounds.

It demands a steady supply of victims, and it will have them. So we see, if we didn't already know, that there is still much work to be done in efforts to overcome class and racial hatred. It is up to every one of us to overcome the haters. And not by hating right back, as the Greensboro Communists apparently attempted to do. Parents have the difficult task of teaching and showing their children by example that there is no room for hate in the world.

Churches, synagogues and mosques must speak out, as they never have before, against racism. Civic and service organizations and schools all of us have important roles to play in promoting understanding and tolerance. Finally, it would do all of us good to remember the words of the Apostle Paul as recorded in Romans 12:21 "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Jimmy Carter Jerry Brown ByJackGermond and Jules Witcover Chicago Tribune WASHINGTON As Sen. Edward M. Kennedy opens his campaign for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination, the conventional if transitory wisdom here is that he is far from but of the woods on the Chappaquiddick issue.

Indeed, this capital of inside politics has been buzzing for several days now about Kennedy's hesitant, faltering performance in his CBS interview with Roger Mudd last Sunday night. Political professionals have never been misled by opinion surveys purporting to show that only a minority of the voters are concerned by the Chappaquiddick question. They have recognized all along that the critical question is how the issue evolves during the campaign. And the CBS program, although it attracted only IS per cent of the television audience, is the first national "event" in that process. The response among politicians across the country has been predictably varied.

Some party leaders were hardly aware of the program. Don Michael, the Indiana party chairman, for example, said Democrats there John kisses Jewish vote goodbye By Richard Reeves Universal Press NEW YORK John Connally ran the first national commercial of his presidential campaign on Oct 30. He spoke for five minutes on the CBS net-, work, but the people I saw the next day remembered only one sentence: The one where Connally said he was "the candidate of the forgotten who goes to church on Sunday and believes in prayer in schools." Jews go to church or temple on Saturday, and most of them don't believe in prayers in public schools. And I happened to be spending Oct 31 in a series of meetings with American Jewish leaders. I ended that day and the next convinced that American Jews will do whatever they can to destroy Connally politically.

Personally, watching Connally over the past couple of weeks, I've concluded that he is either a knave or a fool, probably a bit of each. Connally is a tough, shrewd professional, and I assumed he knew exactly what he was doing two weeks ago when he called for "Palestinian self-determination" and suggested that a more independent American policy on Israel might serve "broader American interests in the Middle East." Broader interests, of course, is a euphemism for Arab oil. When some American Jews griped about, that, as Connally must have known they would, he countered that he is a "friend" of Israel and would never tie the Jewish state's "liberty" to "the price of oil." It was against that background that the candidate, knavishly, I think, began talking about church, Sunday and prayer. And foojishly, too. What Connally wanted to do was to set himself apart from the crowd of Republican candidates challenging the party's front-runner, Ronald Reagan.

Maybe he's accomplished that but the price is too high. You have to conclude that Connally calculated that he could get away with tapping America's real but essentially benign anti-Semitism, pitting the Christian majority against the small Jewish minority a minority that barely exists in the Republican Party. I doubt it will work; Americans, Republican and Democrat treasure their self-image of fairness. Assuming the worst which I do, even if Connally got away with it in the Republican primaries, something I doubt, Jewish Democrats will be waiting for him in the general election. (I am willing to bet that Jewish political contributors, who have traditionally supplied half the financing of the Democratic Party, will contribute to Connal-ly's Republican opponents if he begins to do at all well in next year's early primaries.) We're not joking about this: Brown has a great idea Sacrifices to the god of hate Ted Kennedy livid, hostility among the three to produce al- most as much tension as Jau s.

the movie that competed with Teddy's anguished hour with Roger Mudd. Kennedy blames Carter and Brown for getting him into a race he might rather have not made. If Carter had such weakness and Brown had not come forward as tne omy alternative, ne wouia not oe Deing quizzed about his private life on national tel-' evision. Carter hates Brown for exposing his political ineptitude at the height of the gas lines. Brown thinks Kennedy is an anachronism and that Carter has the limited talents of a staff man.

But with a firm moderator in charge, perhaps we could hear some talk, for a in which they define the country instead of themselves. We might hear something about the en- ergy problem. In New Hampshire, it is a mat- ter of supreme concern. t' We might hear something about this country's nuclear future. Seabrook is there, in construction.

Thousands have been ar- 5 rested trying to stop it. We might hear some interesting talk about the economy. Does any one of them know what should be done about it? Inflation i is the issue that has dragged Carter down to I his historically low standing. Faith For few brief days the orchards are white with blossoms. They soon turn to fruit, or else float away, useless and wasted, upon the idle breeze.

So will if be with present feefingsr. They must be deepened into decision, or be entirely dissipated by delay. Theodore Cuyfer. By Mary McGrory Washington Star WASHINGTON Gov. Jerry Brown may save us yet.

He is, of course, proclaiming his availability to save the country as its chief magistrate, an idea not widely endorsed among the electorate. But by pressing for a debate among the three Democratic presidential candidates, he may rescue the campaign from the pits toward which it is rapidly sliding. Brown has fired off telegrams to President Carter and Sen. Edward Kennedy challenging them to meet him in New Hampshire at three television debates before the primary vote on Feb. 26.

That way, there is a hope that the discussion will be lifted out of questions about motel keys and paved and unpaved roads. Brown presumably could expect to be asked about home heating oil instead of-Linda Ronstadt and the matter of Mrs. Carter's influence on her husband would be relegated to its rightful place. It would be a difficult thing to say which of the three contenders has the most to gain by such an encounter. Carter has picked up slightly in one poll, but has lost in another.

He has a serious problem getting the country's attention. Kennedy's Sunday appearance on CBS television's Special Report had, for some of his followers, an almost Pearl Harbor quality: Kennedy couldn't think of any reason for his failed marriage except his wife's drinking problems, and when asked why he should be president, couldn't think of any reason at all. As for Brown, who has been sinking out of sight any chance to demonstrate that he is not a visitor from outer space would represent a fantastic opportunity. He is a Jesuit-trained debater and is faster on his feet than either Carter or Kennedy. The television debate would be excellent theater.

There is sufficient lively, almost HATRED wears many disguises. It hides under the robes of the Ku Klux Klan, or wears Nazi armbands. Sometimes it calls itself Communist, sometimes anti-Communist. But it is always the same, and it often produces the same results: Destruction, death, broken people and broken dreams. Hatred erupted in five deaths over the weekend in Greensboro, N.C., when self-proclaimed Nazis and members of the KKK opened fire on Communist protesters involved in a "Death to the Klan" rally.

But don't be fooled into thinking there is anything "special" about what happened in Greensboro. That city is not special in its capacity for racism and prejudice. What happened there is the final product of hating minds. The same kind of hating minds that invaded the 202 S. Parker St Tampa, Florida 33606 R.F.

Pttlman Publisher James F. Urbanski General Manager SamStickney Senior Editor James M. Talley Editorial Editor S. Bruce Witwer Managing Editor Jack Butcher Edwin E. Eybers George Gleason Robert T.

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