Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 8

star Opinion A8 Star-Tribune, Casper, Wyo. Wednesday, June 22, 1 988 1 Casper State Senate to change faces, not imbalance Robin Hurleif Publisher Richard C. High Editor 170 Star Lane, Box 80, Casper, WY 62602 307-266-0500 The Casper Daily Tribune Est. Oct. 9, 1916 by J.

E. Hanway The Casper Star Est. in 1949 USPS 092 660 Published daily. Second Class Paid at Casper, Wyo. 87601 by Howard Publications, Inc.

Copyright 1988. Casper Star Tribune vacated by Republican Rex Arney. It looks like the scat now will stay in the Republican camp. Moore said the parly has some good candidates running this year. She said the Democratic ticket for the Campbell-Johnson senatorial district is strong this year.

Former legislator Lawrence J. Hunter, and Ruth Slater, both of Gillette, are runing for the two Senate seals on the Democratic ticket. They will face Republican incumbents Kelly Mader and John CHEYENNE At this juncture, the election roster for the Wyoming Senate won't produce major changes in the Republican-Democratic ratio. The lineup now is 19 Republicans and 1 1 Democrats. Those numbers are unlikely to change next year when the 1989 session convenes although we'll be seeing some new faces.

The Democrats this year are expected to lose the Big Horn County Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Frank Hinckley. Will we absolve oF Ron from one more scandal? jan Barron The closest the Senate came to Democratic control was the 15-to-15 split in 1975-76. choice. This will be a race to watch. It will be a referendum on whether Wiederspahn's federal court conviction for marijuana possession last year was fatal to his political career.

In March 1987, Wiederspahn, a Cheyenne attorney, was placed on one year's probation and was fined $1,000 for possession of three-quarters of one ounce of marijuana. The Democrats had some faint hope of gaining a majority in the Senate this year. But clearly that won't happen, barring a Democratic landslide at the top of the ticket. The Democrats haven't controlled both houses of the Legislature since the 1930s. In 1964, the Democrats won control of the House, but not the Senate.

The closest the Senate came to Democratic control was the 15-to-15 split in 1975-76. Democratic state party chairman Muffy Moore said two Democratic representatives, Eli Bebout of Fremont County, and Lynn Dickey of Sheridan County thought about running for the Senate but decided they wanted to stay in the House. Moore said it's not productive, anyway, to pressure people to do what they don't want to do. Bebout, a freshmen, would have faced a tough race against incumbent Republican Frank Dusl. Dusl, who almost didn't run at all, has no opposition for re-election.

Dickey would have been a strong contender for the Senate seat The election of the 75-ycar-old Hinckley to succeed Republican Cal Taggart was regarded as another aberration in Wyoming politics, the result largely of territorial rivalry in diverse Big Horn County. It appears likely the Democrats will pick up the Senate seat in Laramie County being vacated by Republican Richard Larson. Three candidates seeking the two Senate seats are Rep. Liz Byrd, an astonishing vote-getter; incumbent Al Wiederspahn and political newcomer Jim Applegate. Applegate, a Cheyenne lawyer and president of the state Board of Law Examiners, issued a statement saying he wants to give voters a By JIM FAIN Cox News Service WASHINGTON An epidemic of military-industrial graft more widespread than any before it engulfs the Pentagon.

It will make not the slightest dent in Ronald Reagan's Teflon. Nobody wants to rain on the amiable old pfoof's retirement parade. If we loved him while he was selling arms to the Ayatollah and lying to us about it why fuss over investing a few billion defense dollars in corruption? The establishment here is blindly protective. Boys will be boys, sighs the Washington Post. Everybody does it, clucks columnist George Will, his moral indignation shrunk from massive to passive in just eight years.

Yet Ronald Wilson Reagan is where the buck stops, just as he has been responsible for most of the rascality that made his the most corrupt admininistration in American history. Not counting the latest shenanigans, more than 120 senior officials have been accused of major crimes and ethical breaches. We've heard not a word of condemnation from the president, even when such palace chamberlains as Mike Deaver and Lyn Nofziger were convicted. Nor have public and press blamed him. Despite the principle that democracy can work only when elected leaders are accountable, few want to link Reagan to the cesspool over hich he presides.

About as close as even hard-line Democrats get is the generalized plaint that the Gipper's love sonnets to greed and glitz created open season for pursuit of booty. In fact, he's guilty of much more. Reagan brought to Washington a corps of hard-line ideologues whose fervor against bureaucracy made governing a morality play of "us" against "them." Most felt they had to circumvent the government struc- Send art to 1988 Gp BUCK, Alttr UOBODY BELIEVE VE DONE DROWNED IU THAT. Campbell, Hot Springs, Johnson, Lincoln, Niobrara, Sublette, Uinta, and Weston counties. The Republicans have no candidates for the Senate from Albany County; for the house from Teton County, or for the House or Senate from Sweetwater County.

In Albany County, Republican Ted Gcrtsch filed for the Senate but withdrew at the last minute. This leaves Democratic incumbent Lisa Kinney unopposed. So look for Republican write-ins in Albany, Teton, and Sweetwater counties. DID YOU SEE where Parade Magazine listed Dick Cheney as a "best bet" for secretary of defense if George Bush is elected president? The magazine chose James Baker II as secretary of state, and Nicholas Brady, secretary of the treasury, in a Bush cabinet. Also there is considerable speculation that state Sen.

Tom Stroock of Casper will be in line for an appointment of some sort if Bush, a good friend and Yale classmate, ins the election. (to half-naked, dripping wet, could have been spaced out on a hallucinogenic drug. In the six or eight seconds of such an encounter, with one's heart pounding and the adrenaline flowing, there is no time to chop logic. The most elemental instincts take control. Judge not, ye belittlcrs, lest one day ye also be judged.

The incident says something else. It underlines the folly, the futility, the imbecility of gun registration laws. I too favor certain measures toward "gun control." The sale of handgun ammunition should be tightly regulated; a waiting period should be imposed upon purchasers of handguns; mandatory sentences should be imposed on those who use firearms in commission of a felony. All of that. But gun laws should be aimed primarily at making ii difficult for criminals to get handguns, and registration serves thai purpose not at all.

The criminal is never going to register his gun. Such laws serve only to trap honesi ciliens, e.g., Carl Rowan. The affair has an ironic epilogue. A third liberal columnist for The Washington Post had written a Sunday supplement piece that went to press before the Rowan incident. This gentleman had just been the victim of a burglary.

He had armed himself helplessly with a pair of scissor, lie confessed that he hungejed for a gun. The thief had stolen not only a computer but "an ideology, loo." High lime. lira a A ture to achieve the Reagan revolution. The Iran-Contra mess was one result. In the Defense Department, where Reagan planned to plow all the money he could talk out of Congress, his team was determined to cut corners in the interest of efficiency.

There's a lot to be said for that, but it's not without risk. To achieve that kind of effectiveness, you need more than True Believers. The players have to know what they're doing and be people of honor and integrity. For Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger it was enough that they be effective salesmen on "our side." He forgot that some of the loudest amen-shoutcrs steal from the collection plate. He had warning, as did Reagan.

One of the first of the new crew to fall from grace was Weinberger's deputy, Paul Thayer, former president of LTV Aerospace Corp. Thayer resigned in 1984 and pleaded guilty to insider stock trading. Fie was not grafting he was doing favors for his mistress and a few friends but his example should have alerted someone that ideological correctness, no matter how ardent, does not insure rectitude. The entire Reagan mystique condemns those who traditionally make government function. Some of the bureaucratic maze the Reaganauts deplored existed to serve as a defense against corruption and dishonesty.

Inefficient, sure, but necessary unless you can guarantee total integrity. Among the 3,000 Reagan appointees were a legion of freebooters, pursuing their own notion of capitalism. They ripped off the government freely, which means, of course, all of us who pay taxes. To absolve Reagan of their misdeeds traduces the basic principle of self-government. Unfortunately, that looks like where we're headed.

Arts Edition by Dick Wright Perry in the general election. Hunter, 62, served six years in the house in the 1970s, proving that a Democrat can get elected from Campbell County. Moore said the minority party also should pick up some scats in the House. In some counties, she said, the party will have to line up write-in candidates. All told, the Democrats failed to fill their tickets in 15 counties, while the Republicans didn't field full slates in six counties.

The Democrats have no primary election candidates from Big Horn, and that he should not have used it." What is obvious to the Post ofien is not obvious to others. Two of the Post's liberal columnists turned on their brother with ridicule and scorn. Their hearts bled for the wounded intruder. He was only "a young man in his undershorts." The trespassers were merely "frolicking." Instead of using a pistol, Rowan should have used a baseball bat, a German shepherd, or Mace. He should have had burglar alarms.

He could have put barbed wire on top of his fence. He should have done anything anything! but use a gun against the poor dear darling boy who was coming at him in the middle of the night. Well, hooray for Carl, and his critics be damned. It is wonderfully easy on a Wednesday afternoon to see that the intruder was only a jolly frolicker out on a lark. It is something else entirely at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Washington is a city ridden by drugs. For all Curl could have known, this weird figure, 0 S' Rowan, handguns, and the poor dear boy The Casper Star-Tribune welcomes submissions from Wyoming artists for its 1988 Arts Edition. The Arts Edition is scheduled to be published in mid-September. Deadline for submissions is July 31; submissions postmarked after that date will not be accepted. Artists are encouraged to submit at least four different samples of their art in four black white, glossy, 8x10 photographs and a number of color slides or 4x5 transparencies, a short statement about their work, or how they work, and a brief resume.

Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope, so that the material may be returned. Material sent without self-addressed, stamped envelopes will not be considered for the Arts Edition. We welcome material from any artist whose work can be fairly represented through photographs. Past issues of the Arts Edition have included paintings, sculpture, ceramics, weaving, jewelry, blown glass, and photography. Poets and writers should submit their work typed in standard format.

Include a brief resume and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. We will consider short stories and chapters of novels less than 1,500 words; personal essays of less than 1,000 words; and poetry of any length and style. Artists and writers will be paid upon publication for work which is printed. Five dollars will be paid for each photograph and for each poem; $25 paid for each story or essay. Mail material to Charles Levendosky, Arts Edition Editor, Box 3033, Casper, Wyoming 82602.

charges are reinstated, which they should be, the invaders will face a maximum fine of $100. Rowan awaits arrest on a charge of violating the District of Columbia's gun registration law. He could be fined $1 ,000 and sent to prison for a year. The incident has evoked wild howls from several quarters for this reason: Carl has been an ardent advocate of what is simplistically known as "gun control." He has For all Carl could have known, this weird figure, half-naked, dripping wet, could have been spaced out on a hallucinogenic drug. By JAMES J.

KILPATRICK Universal Press Syndicate WASHINGTON A little after 2 o'clock on the morning of June 14, columnist Carl Rowan was awakened by the sound of trespassers. There followed the "Rowan Incident." The affair has set this town on its ear. For the record: Carl Rowan is my friend. We have worked on the same television program for nearly 20 years; we are members of the same club; we have debated happily and heatedly before a dozen audiences and shared a bottle thereafter. I am biased in his direction.

Carl's account of the incident, which I believe implicitly, is that he heard someone tampering with a window. Police investigation confirms the tampering. He quietly telephoned for the police, armed himself with a .22 revolver and went to investigate. He found a group of strangers in his swimming pool. The intruders had scaled an eight-foot fence.

They had littered the patio with beer cans and marijuana butts. He ordered them out, but a tall youth lunged toward him. Rowan, fortunately a lousy shot, fired once. He intended to hit the guy in the foot and hit him in the wrist. The 18-year-old trespasser was treated at a hospital for a minor wound and promptly released.

Police briefly detained one of the other intruders and then dropped charges against all of them. If the SHORT RIBStm urged that private possession of handguns be absolutely forbidden. Now he stands charged with hypocrisy. To that charge he has to plead nolo contendere no contest. But the matter is not that open-and-shut.

In an awful moment of perceived peril, he used a gun to defend his home, his wife and himself. As he has said, he did "what I had to do." I'm with him all the way. The Washington Post weighed in with one of its pantywaist editorials on guns. It is "obvious," said the Post, that Rowan "should not have had an unregistered gun in the house i Have to aDmiT thst Reacarvs arcumetiTs are ITIOSTLY SOUtlD!.