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

DATE: MONDAY, May 8, 1995                   TAG: 9505080050
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FOSTER REDUCED TO A POLITICAL PAWN

REMEMBER how Republicans complained, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, about important issues being bottled up in committees, denying rank-and-file legislators their rights to debate and cast votes? Remember Republicans' earnest promises this past election campaign to strengthen the democratic process, provide a more open forum for discussion, and ensure congressional accountability if only they would be put in charge?

Well, the GOP's in charge, and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole has vowed to block a Senate floor vote on the confirmation of Dr. Henry Foster for surgeon general - even if President Clinton's beleaguered nominee passes muster of the committee now considering the nomination.

Dole mumbles something about Senate rules permitting such thwarting actions. But he has yet to offer any good reason why the full Senate should not consider Foster's nomination - as indeed it should.

Yes, Foster is a controversial nominee, in part because of his own inconsistent statements about the number of legal abortions he has performed as a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist in Tennessee. The White House did its usual, incredibly bad job of preparing for the nomination.

It's not yet certain that the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee will recommend Foster's confirmation - though that is beginning to look more likely.

What is certain is that Foster has become a pawn on the chess board of abortion politics and the Republican presidential campaign. Neither his qualifications to be surgeon general nor the questions about his credibility seem paramount. It's how the nomination can be maneuvered for political advantage.

Foster's fate has become almost beside the point. If he isn't confirmed, he can return home to Nashville and his highly regarded "I Have a Future" program, which has helped hundreds escape from the crippling pathologies of poverty, including births out of wedlock and lifetimes on welfare.

Foster's impressive but personable performance in Senate committee testimony has clearly disarmed his critics, and made clearer that the real opposition to his confirmation comes from the hard religious right. They would oppose him in any event, because he has performed abortions.

It so happens, however, that the rigid right has the Republican Party in a stranglehold, especially when it comes to nominations of candidates for political office. Dole, front-runner for the presidential nomination, and Sen. Phil Gramm, one of his main challengers, obviously have not turned deaf ears to threats from the religious right that it will smite the Republican ticket in '96 if it is not uncompromisingly anti-abortion.

Gramm threatened a filibuster if Foster's nomination reaches the Senate floor. Dole did not want Gramm to have that spotlight, so he tried for a checkmate - no floor debate, no floor vote. All this to protect the nation from a mild-mannered 61-year-old doctor whom President Bush counted as one of his "Points of Light".

Since the roughing up of Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork, the confirmation process has often been ugly. But, even against this background, denying Foster a floor vote would be extreme to say the least. However else the public may view this nomination, people surely will recognize the unfairness in using it as a cynical, tactical walk-up for the GOP presidential primaries. Dole does himself no favor by playing this game.

by CNB