THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409080483
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Well, hand this to much-ridiculed U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb.
In Tuesday's debate, he was the the only candidate to deal with crucial points on two major issues.
The place for assault weapons, he said, was in war, not on the streets. And to cut the deficit, all entitlements - Social Security, Medicare, the lot - should be on the table.
That took courage.
But then, exaggerating for emphasis, Robb said everybody, even widows and orphans, should be eyed. That, as former Gov. Doug Wilder said, was a ``stupid line.''
He hadn't been speaking literally, Robb said. He has said as much in driving home to colleagues the need for deficit reduction by the billions.
From the start, Robb was grim-jawed. Pundits and, perhaps, handlers have been urging him to show feeling. But under TV's eye, unless a fellow's a gifted ham, he should never try to be other than he is.
Better to be stuffy than stuffed.
Oliver North's camp exults that Robb is in freefall. Pundits speculate Robb may duck other debates. But his ragged performance makes it imperative he debate again.
And North is being buffeted about his role as point man in Iran Contra dealings. In a line he has used from Pungo to Big Stone, North declared: ``I'm the most investigated man on this planet!''
``There might be very good reasons for that to be the case!'' Wilder rejoined. His retort may spare us of ever having to hear that line again from North.
Moderator Judy Woodruff challenged the four to answer voters' doubts about their truthfulness.
She got at the character issue, but it scarcely applied to the two independents. She chided Wilder for getting in and out of the race for president and getting out of and then back in the race for the Senate.
THAT is a moral issue? It was no more than an audacious politician testing the wind. What may dog Wilder was calling for a primary and, after Robb agreed, backing down and choosing to run after the primary as an independent.
And she criticized J. Marshall Coleman for moderating his views on abortion after that issue caused him to lose by a whisker his race with Wilder for governor in 1989.
Coleman's agreeing to run again after that heartbreaker may bring his sanity into question but not his morality. Coleman's sensible change of mind in no way equates to Robb's infidelities and partying where others allegedly used cocaine nor to North's role in Iran-Contra.
Iran-Contra put the nation at greater jeopardy than Watergate. Its participants functioned as virtually a shadow branch of government, running a war, dabbling in global relations, using vast sums.
Early in the campaign, North's ex-superior, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane, recalled that in direct violations of his orders against negotiations over arms for hostages, ``it is now clear that North carried on virtually non-stop talks with the Iranians outside the formal meetings to cut some kind of arms deal. The Iranians must have been truly confused - hearing of our apparent willingness to deal out in the hall from North and getting an absolute stonewall from me in the formal meetings.''
What North did ought to be subject to as much inquiry as when and where he lied.
KEYWORDS: SENATE RACE CANDIDATES DEBATE by CNB