The Week - CNN reportedly hopes to create a Bill Clinton talk show - this and other items are discussed

National Review, May 28, 2001

MAKING IT OFFICIAL: CNN is trying to develop a new talk show hosted by former president Bill Clinton.

Our views on the Bob Kerrey matter line up with those expressed by editor-at-large John O'Sullivan elsewhere in this issue. Like most Americans, we want to give the former senator the benefit of every doubt because of his valor and decency. But that disposition cannot wipe away the doubts themselves. Some conservatives have mistakenly leapt to Kerrey's side because they sense the charge against him amounts to a charge against American involvement in Vietnam generally. But Kerrey's defenders do more to discredit America when they suggest, as too many of them do, that war crimes were numerous and routine there, so why sort through them? We believe otherwise. There is no statute of limitations on war crimes. The ones alleged here are sufficiently serious to deserve whatever investigation can be made-an investigation that, we earnestly hope, clears Kerrey and his fellow SEALs of an awful charge.

To get his tax cut through the Senate, President Bush had to shrink it from $1.6 trillion to $1.35. Conservatives need not be too disappointed. The size of the tax-cut bill matters less than the policies it includes. Hence we have argued for vigorous pro-growth tax cuts, whether they lower federal revenues by more than $1.6 trillion or less. Conservatives should continue to press for the tax-cut bill to reduce the top income-tax rate as deeply and as quickly as possible. And since the bill is supposed to include provisions to counteract the economic slowdown, conservatives should insist that those provisions be effective-that they take the form of a capital-gains tax cut rather than a rebate. However it shapes up, the bill is not the end of the story. After the budget goes through, popular tax cuts, such as an end to the marriage penalty and relief from the alternative maximum tax, should be considered as stand-alone bills. Congress spends money year- round. It should cut taxes year-round too.

The cause of modernizing Social Security is showing surprising strength. Bush has just appointed a commission to look into free-market reform, and polls show continued support for it. On May 8, Gallup reported that 54 percent of the public favored, and only 36 percent opposed, letting workers invest some of their contributions to the program. Support has dropped by only 5 points after a year of tumbling markets. In the long run, support is likely to grow. On the same day Bush announced the commission, the House voted to expand 401(k)s, IRAs, and other pension plans exempt from the double taxation of savings. The bill, co-sponsored by Ohio Republican Rob Portman and Maryland Democrat Benjamin Cardin, passed with 407 votes. Given what we know about the effects of increased involvement in capital markets on people's political attitudes, enactment of this bill may make it easier to reform Social Security in the future. The bill may even be more important than the president's worthy commission.

If more spending on schools caused children to learn more, the education bill moving through Congress would do wonders to boost student achievement. Of course, the experience of the last 20 years disproves that premise. Spending per student has increased by over 22 percent in constant dollars, but still one-third of college freshmen enroll in remedial reading, writing, or mathematics courses. Washington has spent $120 billion on Title I to help disadvantaged students, but still nearly 70 percent of inner-city and rural fourth graders cannot read at a basic level. President Bush's bipartisan bill nonetheless doubles Title I funding over the next five years. America's biggest educational problem may be that Washington never learns anything.

Bush forwarded his first batch of nominees to important federal courts, and they are an impressive group of conservatives in the main. It is also a shrewdly selected group. The White House has practiced a bit of affirmative action: A majority of the first crop of nominees are women or nonwhites, which will make it harder for Democrats to oppose them. Political circumstances forced the renomination of Roger Gregory, one of Clinton's unconservative judges. Gregory is black, and the Democrats had made his renomination a civil-rights cause. When the leading Republicans in Gregory's home state of Virginia-Jim Gilmore, John Warner, and George Allen-caved, the administration had little choice but to follow suit. But Bush is making the best of it, placing the onus on Democrats to show similar bipartisanship when it comes to confirmation. Bush's personal appearance with these nominees demonstrates his commitment to getting them confirmed: No president before him has gone to the trouble. But the Democrats are listening to left-wingers who want to block every judge put up by this usurper president. Buckle your seat belts.

President Bush is reportedly considering nominating John Walters, a former aide to William Bennett, as his drug czar. Walters has critics, who say that he places too much emphasis on punishing drug offenders and not enough on treatment. The outgoing drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, has joined the criticism. Some of that criticism may be unfair-Walters actually supports treatment, but thinks that legal sanctions are necessary to get addicts into treatment-but the truth is bad enough. Walters believes that the Clinton administration was insufficiently tough on states that voted to allow medicinal marijuana. He favors the further militarization of drug policy, even though there is little evidence that military interdiction efforts affect drug consumption. He testified in favor of shooting down civilian aircraft suspected of carrying drugs over Peru-a policy that recently claimed the lives of an American missionary and her child. Defenders of that policy might say that all wars have civilian casualties. But if we are going to continue to wage a war for the utopian goal of a "drug-free America," it should at least be run by someone who is willing to take account of the war's costs. John Walters does not appear to be that man.