Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9411050003
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: E6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: VANESSA GALLMAN KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
For that, members of the clergy have branded U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders an enemy of family values; members of Congress have demanded her resignation and even the White House has begun to distance itself from her.
And earlier this month, her son was sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling cocaine to an undercover cop.
It has not been an easy first year for Elders, who ran the Arkansas Health Department when President Clinton was governor there. Other Friends of Bill have lost their jobs for less.
Now, supporters wonder how much more she can get away with - and how much more personal stress she can take.
Administration officials have sought to tone Elders down or, at least, put distance between her views and Clinton policy. Administration pragmatists fear her in-your-face style has overshadowed her messages against smoking, teen pregnancy, violence and child abuse. A media research group reports that Elders gets more bad press than any other administration appointee.
Earlier this month, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta told reporters that he had had strong words with Elders - in his words, he had taken her to ``a modified woodshed'' - for saying that priests and others who oppose abortion have ``a love affair with the fetus.''
In June, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala sighed when asked whether she agreed with Elders' comment that more research money should be spent on AIDS, which affects the young, than cancer, which affects the old,
``I don't agree with Dr. Elders about everything that she says,'' Shalala said.
A week later, 87 GOP congressmen asked Clinton to fire Elders for rallying gays and lesbians to save children from the ``un-Christian religious right.'' The administration responded with a letter of support for Elders that included a disclaimer: the surgeon general's views ``do not necessarily reflect those of the president and his administration as a whole.''
After her drug legalization comment last year, Clinton defended Elders' right to be ``outspoken and energetic in a way that I don't necessarily agree with.'' But since then, the president has made no other public statement of support.
``The Clintons have stood by her, but I'm sure there are times when he's had to gulp,'' said Paul Costello, a Democratic consultant. ``How many times can you expect the president to gulp?''
The president would face political peril in firing Elders, though. David Bositis, senior analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, calls her ``the most politically, culturally and unabashedly black'' Clinton appointee, ``meaning she is tuned in to all the issues that face the black community.''
``If Bill Clinton fires Joycelyn Elders, I would be asking myself: Does he have a death wish?'' said Bositis, whose nonpartisan think tank focuses on issues of concern to blacks.
Elders, 61, vowed during her confirmation hearings to be ``the voice and vision of the poor and the powerless.'' She has a strong following among those who think the country is not paying enough attention to the impact of AIDS, violence and poverty on the young, minorities and gays.
``She is the only person in that high a position who speaks about how gay and lesbian people live in this country and raise families and are part of communities,'' said Robin Kane, who speaks for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. ``And she has taken a lot of hits for that from the right wing.''
Elders also deals with the reality of teen life in her campaigns for condoms and more sex education in schools, said John Cowan, co-founder of Lead or Leave, an advocacy group for young people.
``She's basically telling the truth, as far as young people are concerned. And the political system is squeamish about the truth,'' said Cowan. ``She talks about what is going on in the lives of young people, and it resonates. The choice of whether to take condoms on a date is not a political statement. It's survival.''
Some of Elders' statements ``inflame passion and emotions that are not productive,'' said Kent Amos, founder of Urban Family Institute, a child and family advocacy organization.
But new ideas come from people who push the edge, said Amos, a former IBM executive. ``She is taking on very tough issues and trying to push the debate on those issues. That's the role that someone should take on in a leadership position.''
Indeed, a major part of the appeal of this sharecropper's daughter is that Elders is willing to risk her job for her principles.
But mention her name and even her supporters ask, ``What has she said now?''
It happened again as Elders struggled for self-control during her son Kevin's sentencing for selling cocaine. She had written the judge asking for leniency, saying that when Kevin needed her most, she was too busy with politics.
When asked if she thought he would commit other offenses while free on bail, Elders testified, ``I don't feel that was a crime.'' She did not explain whether she thought her son had not committed a crime because of entrapment, a claim made during the trial, or whether she thought selling cocaine was not a crime.
``I was surprised that someone in her position would make a comment like that,'' Deputy Prosecutor Chris Palmer told the Associated Press, noting that Kevin Elders had written a letter to the court acknowledging that he had committed a crime.
But Elders has never been one to worry if her stands make other people uncomfortable.
When her husband, Oliver, coached a high school basketball team, she would harass the referees so badly from behind the bench that they would give the team technical fouls.
``Of course, we didn't like getting the technicals,'' said Oliver Elders, who now works for the U.S. Department of Education. ``But, to tell the truth, I often wondered why we didn't get more.''
In a way, Elders has played that same role in the Clinton administration - preaching from what she calls her ``bully pulpit'' about issues of sexuality that many people do not want to hear. Critics say her comments hurt the president, portraying his administration as outside the mainstream.
The president needs to fire her, said Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., the author of the letter asking for Elder's resignation.
``She's supposed to pull us together to fight sickness and diseases,'' he said. ``She's on her own agenda, and it's inflammatory and divisive.''
Clinton needs ``to disassociate himself or tone her down, or she will be a political campaign issue in the congressional elections.'' Stearns said.
Democratic National Committee spokesman Jim Whitney doubts the elections will hinge on Elders. Voters are more concerned about substantive issues such as deficit reduction and health care reform, he said.
``Republicans don't want to talk about the issues, they want to set up diversions,'' Whitney said. ``What voters are going to be looking for this fall is whether the candidates delivered for them.''
But Rep. Scotty Baesler, D-Ky., found it hard to go home in the wake of the Elders ``un-Christian right'' controversy. On a statewide radio show, Baesler became the first Democrat to call for her ouster after callers threatened to vote him and Clinton out of office because of Elders' comments.
``I think she has demonstrated a tremendous insensitivity to other people's religious beliefs,'' said Baesler. ``She's taking a broad brush and trying to say everybody is extremist. There's a lot of churchgoing people who think she's talking about them. She's got a bully pulpit, and she's using it the wrong way.''
Some wonder if Elders is playing an alter-ego role, of sorts, for Clinton. Within days of her attack on Christian conservatives, Clinton let loose a barrage of criticism against people like media personality Rush Limbaugh and the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
``I hear people saying that she is the most vocally radical of the Clinton administration staff. Or she is a front for the president, saying things he wants to say. I don't know which is true,'' said the Rev. Thomas Parrish, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Minnehaha Falls, Minn.
Parrish protested when Elders was invited to speak to church leaders in his area, but he doesn't dismiss her out of hand. ``What's unfortunate,'' he said, ``is that probably 85 percent of what she does, I can support. And because of the way she approaches things, that gets overlooked.''
Controversy aside, Elders repeatedly has performed like a stern country doctor: slamming tobacco advertisements aimed at young people, endorsing restrictions on smoking in public, stumping for health care reform, calling for an end to violence and teen pregnancy.
Unlike former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who made smoking his key point of attack, Elders is not a specialist. Her priorities, she says, are to reduce the number of children in the ``5-H Club'' - those hungry, homeless, helpless, hug-less and hopeless.
In pursuing that goal, she has adopted a bedside manner that ruffles, rather than soothes. Instead of reassuring that everything will be fine, she yells that time is running out.
To explain her sense of urgency, Elders often uses this one-liner: ``Opportunity is like the hairs on a bald-head man. They only go around once.''
by CNB