Bill and Jesse

National Review, Sept 1, 1997 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

The mano a mano between Bill Weld and Jesse Helms is great sport because it is a blood feud. It is very hard to believe that Mr. Weld isn't fit to serve as ambassador to Mexico merely because he believes that marijuana for medical use is okay, or because he feels that clean needles are usefully distributed free to drug addicts. And it is very hard to believe that Sen. Helms links these positions on drugs with fitness to serve as ambassador to Mexico. So then what can we believe?

We can believe that Sen. Helms is taking advantage of his position to make a very broad declaration. To what effect? That he, Jesse, is not going to serve as a stepping stone in Bill Weld's upward path. It was Weld who saw Helms's opener and doubled the bet. Up until a week ago, Helms confined himself to criticism of Weld's drug policies. Weld raised the ante to an apocalyptic level when he said that he did not believe Helms's views on the role and future of the Republican Party were the right ones. What he said, pretty directly, was that he, Weld, was not a conservative Republican. Sen. Helms must have glowed with pleasure as he took off his tie, loosened his collar, and dug down to his deepest reserve of chips to heap them on the table, go for broke.

Now the ostensible rules and practices of the game are: 1) The President should have the right to pick his representatives to foreign countries. 2) The head of the Foreign Relations Committee has the right to schedule hearings on nominations. 3) The selection by a Democratic President of a Republican governor presumptively engages the affection of a Republican majority. And 4) everyone should be entitled to his day in court.

But in the current situation these considerations need to be refined.

Bill Weld is not a convincing champion of the presumption of innocence or of partisan loyalty. When he served as assistant attorney general for Ed Meese under President Reagan, he bolted, sniffing his disregard for the attorney general's ethical conduct. Ed Meese was cleared of all charges, but his public exoneration was made more difficult by the dramatic exercise of ethical scrupulosity by Mr. Weld. Mr. Helms would not, of course, point to the opportunistic disloyalty of Mr. Weld, but why shouldn't he bear it in mind? John Kennedy taught his generation, Don't get mad, get even.

And then Mr. Weld's identification as a potential leader of a party that has lost its head is not very successful theater. He gave the voters in Massachusetts everything except free abortions and still they rejected him in a conspicuous fight with an equivalently glamorous Democrat. As governor he swore to introduce economic husbandry to Massachusetts, but the state spends more now than it did before, an increase of double the inflation rate. Gov. Weld was fiercely in favor of restoring capital punishment, but backed off. He would never authorize a pay raise for legislators, but he did. There were 16 Republican state senators when he took office; there are 7 now. He was a militant for term limitation, until he faced the prospect of a third term.

The stakes are very high precisely because of Weld's self-designation as a visionary Republican maverick. There is here, as was the case when Nelson Rockefeller so designated himself in the Sixties, a challenge issued to Republican voters coast to coast. The Party is my type, says Weld, or Jesse's type -- choose.

Well that is exactly what Jesse is prepared to do. Let there be a choice. Weld has with him the articulate apparatus of America. Helms has his dry solemnity and his power as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee -- a post to which, said candidate Weld when spooning with Massachusetts liberals during the campaign, he would not, if elected, vote to reappoint him. Jesse must have caught that, wouldn't you agree?

A former Speaker of the House divulged to this columnist that a campaign to override the decision of a committee chairman in such a matter as this requires very energetic generalship -- by another senator. Who? Teddy? Is there a senator around who wants to spend the balance of the term suffering the slights of Jesse? Surely no Republican will step forward to lead the campaign, though several have urged hearings. It isn't -- is it? -- as if Weld's arrival in Mexico would mean the end of problems with immigration, drugs, trade balances, and illegal nannies.

It isn't the drug thing. If Weld is defeated, I'll suggest to President Clinton that he nominate me. My first language was Spanish. I attended the University of Mexico. And I served the CIA in Mexico. I believe we'd be better off legalizing drugs, but never mind; I warrant Jesse would hold a hearing and vote in favor. I'd meet the other requirements. Hasta la vista, companeros. o