
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 2, 1991                   TAG: 9103040268
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT . . ./ IMAGE PROBLEMS

A CHARGE that racism tinged Gov. Douglas Wilder's decision last month to pardon Joseph Giarratano is ridiculous. Linda Byrd-Harden, executive secretary of the NAACP's Virginia chapter, said she was disappointed that Wilder didn't show similar compassion last year and stop the execution of Wilbert Lee Evans. Evans was black. Giarratano is white.

Said Byrd-Harden: "It's another example that when a black person is facing the chair, you don't get this much sentiment [for a pardon]. It's indicative of a racist society." Maybe so. But the suggestion that skin color figured in Wilder's decision isn't credible.

NOW THAT the shooting's stopped, Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., may want to forget his claim that - by staying in Baghdad during the war - CNN's Peter Arnett could be considered to sympathize with the enemy. Arnett might remind Simpson of a visit to the Iraqi capital several months ago, when the senator told Saddam Hussein his image problems in America were caused by the media.

AND SADDAM'S image problems are not likely to be improved by a book, published in Germany in 1977. In it, two German newspapers report, Saddam clearly signaled his future intentions: to wage war to unite Arabs against the West; to split Japan, Europe and the United States with a clever oil policy; and to expel the Jews and create a Palestinian state in Israel. The book's title: "Unser Kampf" - meaning "Our Struggle." That's a little too close for comfort to Adolf Hitler's book, "Mein Kampf," meaning "My Struggle."

by CNB