The Week - politics

National Review, July 17, 2000

What's the matter with Rick Lazio's friends? His $13,500 profit came from an initial investment of $2,300. If they'd steered him into cattle futures, he could have made $243,800.

Another Justice Department official has urged Janet Reno to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Al Gore for violating campaign- finance laws in the 1996 election-and for lying about it during the subsequent investigation. This recommendation from Robert Conrad, head of the task force looking into these matters, follows those of his predecessor Charles LaBella and FBI director Louis Freeh. It is obvious that Justice is itself incapable of investigating Gore. A special prosecutor, however, would in all likelihood simply bury the story for months, maybe years, and then issue some inconclusive report. (That's what the independent counsel has just done in the Travelgate case.) Sen. Arlen Specter's investigatory committee should take the lead in holding the executive branch accountable. George W. Bush should campaign against the corruption of the Clinton-Gore years. The only way to end the scandals is to end this crowd's stay in Washington.

The otherwise hapless Gore has made one shrewd move recently. With his new retirement-security plan, he has abandoned his earlier tactic of denigrating the stock market. His plan offers to help people enjoy the high returns of the market with a new system of individual accounts, while also "protecting" Social Security. A Newsweek poll found that 67 percent of the public favored the idea, compared with 51 percent who favored George W. Bush's plan. The Gore plan enjoyed support from senior citizens, too, as Bush's did not. For many low- and middle- income workers, each plan would offer roughly the same financial benefits. So Bush ought to expand his pro-investment program to outbid Gore, as Richard Nadler argues in this issue (p. 18). If Bush instead continues simply to attack the Gore plan, his hard-won advantage on Social Security will vanish.

Ralph Nader, as expected, won the Green party nomination and, buoyed by speculation about his possible marginal effect in key states (California, Michigan), plans to run an aggressive campaign, bashing both parties. Don't hold on to your hats. Third parties always fade in the stretch. Even George Wallace and Ross Perot (the first time out)- the only recent third-party candidates to break into double digits-fell off from their campaign peaks. Nader, who has the charm of an East German bureaucrat, is fashioning an appeal to the hard Left, even though the lesson of American exceptionalism is that there isn't much of one in this country. The only candidate who might really suffer because his supporters find Nader's rants against the "insatiable corporate culture"compelling is Pat Buchanan.

A new poll by the Los Angeles Times finds that 54 percent of the public wants abortion to be illegal, or legal only in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. A majority of Americans, that is, takes a position identical to, or to the right of, Bush and the Republican platform. Support for Roe v. Wade has fallen, with 43 percent for and 42 percent against. When informed Bush opposed abortion, 27 percent of respondents said they were more likely to vote for him, only 13 percent that they were less likely-a trend that prevailed among self-described "moderates." Gore's support for abortion rights, on the other hand, lost him some votes. And Bush himself would lose votes, according to the poll, if his running mate favored abortion rights. The political obstacles to the pro-life movement remain large: The fact that more than 65 percent of the public in the Times poll did not know the position of either Bush or Gore is a testament to its aversion to thinking about the subject. But a "pro-choice majority" is one obstacle that does not exist.

Elian Gonzalez has been returned to his father in Cuba . . . which is to say, to Fidel Castro, self-appointed father of that nation. The lad and his sperm donor had actually sent a Father's Day card to El Jefe from the estate of whichever Clinton pal was last to play host to them. The seven-month saga of this unfortunate child revealed a number of things about America, none of them reassuring. We learned, or were reminded of, the following. That most Americans do not know what life is like in a Communist country. That an energetic executive supported uncritically by the mass media, and with a well-drilled party in Congress and a judiciary well-seeded with hacks, can do anything it pleases to Americans and their liberties, under any flimsy pretext it can think up on the spur of the moment. That our left-wing elites actually like Castro and his system and will go to any lengths to ingratiate themselves with him, regardless of the interests of their own nation. And that penniless immigrants who work hard for decades to establish themselves as middle-class Americans are regarded with contempt and loathing by those same elites, especially when they manifest signs of religious belief. No doubt these lessons, like Elian Gonzalez himself, will soon be forgotten, leaving us with the melancholy, extremely un-Clintonian consolation that: "The truth is great, and shall prevail, when none cares whether it prevail or not."