Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 1, 1994 TAG: 9402240002
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Next thing you know, Lorena Bobbitt's going to throw in the hat.
Why shouldn't she? She hasn't been convicted of anything.
True, the Northern Virginian was tried for taking a knife to her husband. But she's put that behind her. She beat the rap.
Now she's famous.
As a Senate candidate, she could draw crowds and cameras. She could raise truckloads of cash by having one of those celebrity books written under her name. And imagine the zealots to her cause she could enlist.
Bobb-itt! Bobb-itt!
Granted, some fancy-pants in the media might question her qualifications. Late-night comedians would poke fun of Virginians for taking her candidacy seriously.
But would her campaign theme be much less ridiculous than North's, in effect: Vote for Me - My Convictions Were Overturned? Would her grasp of issues facing Virginia and the nation be significantly less tenuous?
Jim "Do you recognize this man?" Miller has the issues down pat. He dares do what Bobbitt won't - challenge North for the GOP nomination. And look how far he's gotten.
Budget director under Ronald Reagan, public-policy analyst, author. Miller is a true conservative. His understanding of government far surpasses North's - but that isn't saying much.
While he has held high and influential positions and enjoyed the trust of colleagues, president and public, Miller is disadvantaged now for having failed to abuse and betray these. Integrity, respect for the law? Bad career move. North ended up the celebrity.
Indeed, had the former Marine lieutenant colonel not lied to Congress or shredded evidence or diverted public funds to private endeavors in the Iran-Contra scandal, who would've ever heard of him?
Who would mail him their earnings when he sends out letters warning of creeping socialism (read: gays in the military and taxes on the wealthy)?
Certainly, North wouldn't be traveling the state today, signing autographs, wowing swooning crowds, seeking to join the institution he once deceived and scorned.
North describes himself as a patriot. But the more patriotic gesture came last week from Sen. John Warner, who denounced his fellow Republican as a criminal only able to seek a Senate seat because of a "technical reversal" of his conviction for lying to Congress.
North's response defines gall. In his pocket, which probably never held purloined evidence only because he can afford better suits these days, the candidate now carries a copy of the U.S. Constitution.
In answer to Warner's and others' suggestion that he got off on a technicality, he flourishes Madison's handiwork - the charter he circumvented - and says brightly: The Constitution is no technicality.
Right.
North's convictions were overturned, in fact, because Congress rashly granted him immunity for its hearings. In the testimony that later got him off because it supposedly tainted his trial, he as much as boasted of high crimes and defiance of democratic constraints. The evidence against him was never overturned.
In other words, North's arrogant performance in the hearings provided a platform for his ambitions not only by making Congress-haters stand up and salute, and him rich and famous.
Were it not for his made-for-TV admission of official sins, the commission of which should forever bar him from public office, North would still be a felon - presumably barred by public opinion from election to the Senate.
The courts "exonerated" him, claims North. That's as true as the canned applause his public-relations people dubbed last week onto the officially released tape of his campaign-announcement speech.
Unlike Bobbitt, the former White House aide was convicted by a jury of his peers. He was never exonerated.
He was just left a millionaire and propelled into a Senate race against an incumbent, Charles Robb, who was not indicted but almost was, in a state that once took pride in its politicians.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB