THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 21, 1995 TAG: 9502210270
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Think Bill Clinton's program will pass?
Listen, Clinton was so weak that he couldn't pass the biscuits at the dinner table in a hungry boarding house.
Yet now Republicans are charging Clinton with dividing them.
Whence came this weak-kneed Caesar's sudden prowess?
Why is his foe in disarray?
Clinton's bid to nominate Dr. Henry Foster as surgeon general seemed to be falling apart when Foster began disclosing he had done an escalating number of abortions and, moreover, sterilized mentally retarded women.
Once again Clinton's staff had failed to vet thoroughly a nominee.
And, again, pols and pundits were chiding Clinton for his choice even as they were excoriating him for failing to stand by it.
Even Democrats, fearing to vote for an abortionist, were begging him not to foist Foster on them.
Republicans were gleeful. They had Clinton on the run in what seemed sure to become a rout.
Sensing that one more surrender would ruin him, Clinton turned to fight for wounded Foster.
And, unbelievably, polls showed many voters flocking to support his nomination.
The debate had become a question of whether voters favored a woman's right to choose.
Finally, it seemed, fumble-footed Clinton had stumbled into the right strategy.
In a climax Sunday on ABC's David Brinkley show, Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, front-runner for the GOP nomination for president, declared Clinton was using the Foster nomination to ``make abortion an issue to divide Republicans.''
Divide them? Clinton was simply struggling to save his political hide.
The rift was already there, wide as the Grand Canyon.
How wide became apparent last week when Ralph Reed, field general of the Christian right, issued a warning to GOP leaders.
If they expected the conservative force to back the GOP's nominee in 1996 as it did candidates for Congress in 1994, they had better put an anti-abortion running mate on the ticket with the presidential nominee, he cautioned.
A double-dosed litmus test!
And Reed, with the face of a choir boy and the vinegar of an avenging angel with flaming sword, can make it stick.
The crusade that Pat Robertson signaled in 1988 with his presidential candidacy is coming to a crest next year.
Whether or not you favor abortion, there is political logic in Reed's demanding a payback in 1996 for his forces having delivered support to the GOP in 1994.
On the Brinkley program Sunday, Dole urged Clinton - no, pleaded with him in cajoling tones - to drop the nomination if it becomes clear that Foster doesn't have enough votes in the Senate to be confirmed.
Dole's plea reminds us how tides can turn in these tumultuous times. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
President Clinton
by CNB