THE BEST INAUGURAL MONEY CAN BUY

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

DATE: SATURDAY, January 16, 1993                   TAG: 9301180365
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
THE BEST INAUGURAL MONEY CAN BUY
IT IS INAUSPICIOUS that Ron Brown, President-elect Clinton's choice for commerce secretary, canceled only under pressure a Washington gala in his honor, which was to have been underwritten by corporations likely to have business before the Commerce Department.
Firms including Anheuser-Busch, Pepsico, Textron and J. C. Penney were prepared to pay $10,000 or more each for a "Friends of Ron Brown" affair at the Kennedy Center Sunday night.
Brown terminated the event, but only after the heat was turned up. The prominent lobbyist and outgoing Democratic National Committee chairman has been designated to head a department that makes decisions affecting many large businesses. Couldn't he see that the solicitation of such corporate "friends" might conflict with Clinton's campaign message?
The president-elect, after all, has said he wants an administration guided by strict ethical standards, one that won't be cozying up to special interests. No more business as usual.
Even without the party, Brown's departure for the federal payroll is being sweetened with a $1 million check from his law and lobbying firm. A reward for past services, to be sure. But also, perhaps, an invitation for future consideration?
And Brown says he will recuse himself from decisions affecting only half a dozen of his own clients at his former firm, and then only during his first year in office. By way of contrast, Carla Hills - as President Bush's trade representative - stepped aside from all cases affecting her old firm's clients for a year, and her own ex-clients for the duration.
It may seem unfair to subject Brown to such a standard. It may seem over-zealous, as well, to make a fuss because Zoe Baird, Clinton's nominee for attorney general, employed two undocumented aliens in her household - in violation of a law enforced by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which Baird would oversee.
It may seem like party-pooping, meantime, to observe that seats at one inaugural dinner cost $15,000; a box at the Capital Centre gala will run $25,000. Or to note that the tab for the four-day "People's Inaugural" may top $30 million. (Jimmy Carter's cost between $3 million and $5 million.) Or to point out that most of the bill for all this is being picked up by the likes of AT&T, Boeing, General Electric, the Tobacco Institute, Merrill Lynch, the National Association of Letter Carriers, Atlantic Richfield, etc.
Some of these organizations will get advertising space on the televised presidential gala, some will get first choice of tickets to inaugural events, others will get . . . good will. It depends on the money. All of which seems not that different, in principle, from what is deemed unseemly about Ron Brown's aborted affair.
What did you expect - this is just the way things are in Washington, some will say. And they will be right, except that Clinton has asked to be held to higher standards. He has promised, if not the utter end of business as usual, at least an inauguration of change.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB