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

DATE: SATURDAY, May 13, 1995                   TAG: 9505170035
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BRIEFLY PUT . . .

FORMER President George Bush had a long and honorable career in government. A cynic might wonder if he'd be so quick to chastise the politically powerful National Rifle Association had he future political ambitions. Most, though, will recognize the genuine outrage Bush must feel concerning the NRA's characterization of federal agents as ``jack-booted government thugs.''

Said Bush to the NRA: ``Your broadside against federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor, and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law-enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us.''

In protest, Bush resigned as a lifelong NRA member. Others may not go so far as to ask that their names be removed from the gun lobby's rolls. But we suspect Bush's sentiments are shared by a good number of rank-and-file NRA members.

THE HUGE bureaucracy that Americans seem to love to hate has actually come up with an innovative, good idea: lickless stamps.

U. S. Postal Service customers may not fully appreciate the self-adhesing stamps now. But doubtless they will by Christmastime. The joys of that season definitely do not include having your tongue so gummy from licking greeting-card stamps that it sticks to the roof of your mouth, making you barely able to sing ``Fa la la la la la la la'' without choking.

Go ahead. Send the U. S. Postal Service a thank-you card.

WYTHE County's Board of Supervisors has withdrawn its lawsuit against county residents who tried to get one of the supervisors thrown out of office. Good move.

A board majority had voted in March to try to recover $3,200 in legal costs. These had been incurred because citizen petitioners, unhappy with the board's 4-3 vote to welcome a for-profit prison to Wythe, had sued to recall Supervisor Charles Dix. As it happens, Dix was cleared of all charges stemming from his and another supervisor's visit to a prison facility in Texas.

It is well that the petitioners' suit failed, and well that supervisors have thought better of suing them back. Suing would have mirrored the folly of prison opponents who tried to turn a political issue into a legal dispute. Sorry, but not every grievance gets a day in court.

by CNB