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p«9» 4 NORTHWEST HERALD Section B Friday, July 12,19*5 Opinion Soviets don't merit ABA's 'respect' By Alan Dershowitz United Feature Syndicate Imagine the public outcry if a group of prominent U.S. lawyers were to sign a cooperative agree­ ment based on "mutual respect" with the "official" legal organiza­ tion of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Yet the American Bar Associa­ tion has just such an agreement with the official legal organization of a nation that boasts one of the most repressive regimes on earth: the Association of Soviet Lawyers. This agreement, long sought by the Soviet Union, provides for "ex­ changes" of official delegations, the promise that each will use its "good offices" to assist the other and the possible exchange of "elec­ tronic information" and "publica­ tions." Needless to say, the exchanges will all be one-sided: No "publica­ tions" critical to the Soviet Union will ever be made available to Soviet lawyers, and Soviet lawyers critical of the Soviet regime will never be included in any delega­ tions. U.S. publications and delega­ tions will, as they should, include a wide array of viewpoints about U.S. law. I'm reminded of. the old saw: "American and Soviet citizens are equally free -- each can praise the Soviet Union and criticize the United States without fear of punishment." Nesting invades privacy I looked at the pictures in the Daily Review Atlas newspaper and I started to feel sick. Actually, there were two pictures, boxed, with words in huge type that read: "Birds often nest wherever they can and sometimes the most peculiar places. A killdeer has recently made its nest in the driveway of the Bill Campbell home..." Right there I knew I was finished. Whatever career I had left in the newspaper business was over. For a split second, 1 thought about jumping off the porch and drowning myself in the creek. Then I recon­ sidered and decided to do the right thing. I called up my lawyer, Pilfer Filch. "Did you see what they did to me in the Review Atlas today?" I asked him. Guest Columnist "I didn't see today's paper yet," Pilfer sighed. "So what is it this time? They didn't print your name on your column big enough to suit you? " Smart guy. I ignored him. I made him get a copy of the paper. "Turn to page 10," I said. "The obituaries? " Pilfer said. "The pictures next to the obituaries!" I shouted. "That's my road! My rocks! That's my name! They're trying to kill me!" "You're crazy," Pilfer said. "So a silly bird lays some eggs on your road and somebody puts a picture of it in the paper. It's cute. People like cute in their newspaper once in a while." "I don't need cute, Pilfer," I said calmly. "And I sure don't need cute with my name in it in the newspaper." I've been working for newspapers since 1968. Every single word I've written, every editorial cartoon I've drawn during those 17 years said to the readers, "this guy, Bill Camp­ bell, is not a nice prson." Ask anyone who has ever seen anything I've done in a newspaper. I'm malicious, offen­ sive, downright nasty even. Now, along comes Bruce and his camera from the Daily Review Atlas newspaper and they put me in a trash can. "I got an image to maintain here," I said to Pilfer Filch, my lawyer. "So, what are we going to do to them? How about an injunction? An injunction sounds like a great thing. Or maybe a restraining order, whatever that is." "I don't think I can help you with this one," Pilfer said nervously and hung up on me. Forget Filch, I thought. I'll take care of him later. He's a lousy lawyer anyway. The only reason I have him do my legal work is because he does it for nothing, which is exactly what he's worth. Nippy O'Toole was sitting in my kitchen drinking coffee. "Look what the Review Atlas did to me," I said, pointing at the newspaper on the table in front of him.. "Theobituaries?" Nippy said. "The pictures next to the obituaries," I said impatiently. "Listen, Nip, my reputation can't stand a thing like this.; People will think I'm a bird watcher and it'll ruin me." Nippy studied the pictures closely. "All I see is a road," he said, "and fence posts. There's a blurr in the background." The blurr was Paulus the car­ toonist in his car, driving real fast. He was trying to run over Bruce the photographer. "Don't worry about the bird pic­ tures," Nippy said. "They won't hurt you. Just write a column about something that makes you mad, which seems to be just about everything." I felt reassured. By the way, I am happy to announce the eggs have hat­ ched. Mother bird and her four boun­ cing babies are all doing quite well, thank you. They have since scampered away into tall grass to get away from all this nonsense. (The Guest Columnist, Bill Camp­ bell, is a writer based in Illinois who often works with cartoonist Paulis) NORTHWEST HIRALD "It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." Voltaire ROBERTA. SHAW Editor and Publisher LEONARDM. INGRASSIA Executive Editor STEVEN H. HUNTER Marketing Director MICHAEL E.MORSCH News Editor/Regional DENNISM. McNAMARA Editorial Page Editor RONALD L. STANLEY Circulation Director HOLY SONS, THOOmtNCfrcWPRINK. CAR005E. SMOKE OR CHEW,'/ •• OTHER THAN MF, |t'$ O.K. TO RAISE a uTTii mi- * FOR,IT IS WRITTEN,'/ PRAISE AIMH! Supreme Court still adrift WASHINGTON - One year ago this week, at the end of its 1983-84 term, it looked as if the Supreme Court finally had found a sense of direction. After years of aimless tacking in the philosophical doldrums, the court had taken a reasonably consistent, conser­ vative course. Liberals were outraged, but conservatives were well pleased. This July finds the high court with its sails flapping again. It is drifting. At the end of the 1984-85 term, sentiments are reversed. This summer finds the American Civil Liberties Union filled with good cheer. Over in my camp, we are wondering what in the devil happened to our old friend Lewis Powell. He missed 56 cases because of a prostate operation, but the surgery couldn't account for some of the swing votes that Justice Powell cast. The scholarly Virginian will be 78 in September. In his 13th year on the court he has become its most in­ fluential member. During the term just ended, the court handed down 16 decisions on votes of 5-4. Powell was on the prevailing side in 12 of the 16. He dissented only seven times during the entire term. Looking more closely at those 5-4 divisions, we find that Powell sided with court conservatives in six in­ stances, with court liberals in five. In the 12th case, involving an Alabama tax law, it was hard to say. Conservatives were especially pained by his swing votes with the liberals in cases identified as "Aguilar" and "Dun & Bradstreet." The Aguilar case saw the high court strike down an arrangement in New York by which the poorest of poor children received remedial instruction in parochial schools. In a concurring opinion, Powell acknowledged that the program had "done much good and little, if any, detectable harm," but he found "regrettably" that the ar­ rangement involved excessive en­ tanglement between state and church. He also saw "a con­ siderable risk of continuing political strife over the propriety of direct aid to religious schools." In Dun & Bradstreet, Powell took a springboard leap from a 1983 case involving the free-speech rights of a discharged public employee in New Orleans. This time the ques­ James 1. m Kilpatrick tion was whether Dun & Bradstreet had libeled a builder by mistakenly distributing a false credit report about him. By holding that the credit report was not a matter of "public concern," Powell created a new and troublesome doctrine of libel law. But* perhaps those of us in the conservative camp should not be overly distressed at Powell's key votes in Aguilar and Dun & Bradstreet, and also in his vote to strike down Alabama's "minute of silence" law for prayer or medita­ tion at the start of a school day. Powell stood with the losing conser­ vatives on the only major case of the term involving the issue of states' rights; in a scathing dis­ sent, he denounced his liberal col­ leagues for "rejecting almost 200 years of the understanding of the const i tut ional s ta tus of federalism." Powell was sound on questions of copyright law, prison discipline, the Miranda rule, and the admissibility of evidence. In two unrelated cases, he took a cool view of peaceniks who plead First Amendment rights to justify viola­ tions of law. In any event, Powell's am­ bivalence to one side, it was not an altogether bad term for conser­ vatives. The court's four most con­ sistent liberals -- Brennan, Mar­ shall, Blackmun and Stevens -- dissented 139 times. Hie other five justices dissented only 84 times. That would suggest that conser­ vatives Burger, Rehnquist and O'Connor generally were not too unhappy with the course of this judicial cruise. The court continues to enjoy a period of relative stability in its membership. " Since Powell and Rehnquist were confirmed in December 1971, only two new justices have come aboard -- John Paul Stevens, succeeding William 0. Douglas in 1975, and Sandra Day O'Connor, replacing Potter Stewart in 1981. As it happens, this stability has not encouraged alliances; it seems rather to have encouraged a maverick in­ dependence. Brennan and Mar­ shall still retain a glue-all bond; in 145 cases in which they both par­ ticipated, they disagreed only five times. But the old firm of Burger & Blackmun long since dissolved, and the recent term saw Rehnquist and O'Connor splitting in 17 cases. Overall the term has to be described -- in the conservative view -- as a disappointment, but President Reagan's second term still has three and a half years to go. There may be improvement yet. (James Kilpatrick is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate) Washington D.C. is in-touch town Capital-bashing is back in style. It used to be considered wise to ascribe all of America's ills to out- of-touch elitists lwho ate quiche, who congregated at what were call­ ed "Georgetown cocktail parties," and who didn't know what America was all about. But Washington has grown in re­ cent years . And so, that Georgetown phrase will no longer do. The Georgetown area of D.C. is only a square mile or two. This year's buzz phrase is "Inside the Beltway" -- that yields 275 square miles t6 house all those pointy headed bureaucrats and loaded lobbyists. But the idea is the same: Washington is out-of- touch, parochial and doesn't know what's going on in the real world -- that is, on farms in Iowa, in factories in the Frostbelt, in supermarkets in the Sun Belt. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I offer an unaccustomed thought: Far from being an el i t is t enclave, Washington, D.C. has become the most representative place in America. Consider: Back in the 1960s, liberal political activists were say­ ing that America needed more /'participatory democracy." They wanted Washington to hear the voices of peace activists, civil- rights activists, environmentalists, consumeilsts and feminists. Well, Ben Wattenberg that political participatory explo­ sion has happened, just as the liberals hoped it would. Liberal ac­ tivist representatives came to Washington -- indeed, swarmed over Washington -- using many new techniques. These included lawsui ts , media f i res torms, grassroots political pressure tac­ tics. Washington is surely not out of touch with liberals. But the noise of a democracy is never the sound of one hand clapp­ ing. After the liberals showed how it was done, conservative voices ar­ rived in Washington in force: anti- abortion, anti-gun control, pro- defense, pro-Star Wars, faimess- in-media, pro-traditional values, pro-balanced budget. These days -- need it be said? -- they too haye clout. Washington is in touch with conservatives. Liberals, conservatives -- that's only the beginning of i t . Washington is now the trade- association capital of America. During the 1970s, the number of t rade associat ions in the Washington area went up from 1,200 to 1,700. That's about one new trade association every week -- for a whole decade! Many of those allegedly out-of-It's not just trade associations.^ Lobbyists represen­ ting specific businesses are here in force; the number of corporations with Washington offices has doubl­ ed in only 10 years -- to 500. If you work for one of those businesses, or have stock in one, or have a pension plan that has stock in one -- you've got your man inside the beltway, too. And, of course, there are more lobbyists than ever before for unions, for states, for many cities. And more lobbyists for Greek- Americans, blacks, Jews, Arabs and Hispanics. And the elderly. And the kids in school. What about political-action com­ mittees? They've grown from about 100 to 4,000 in a dozen years! They include BLAC PAC, BACK PAC, WHATAPAC, PEACE PAC, and BAKE PAC (of the Indepen­ dent Bakers Association). They all represent someone, tugging this way and that in the political brokerage we call democracy. . That's a lot of people, represen­ ting a lot of people from every walk of American life. They mostly reside in a place called "Inside the Beltway," which is really only a road surrounding America's most in-touch town--Washington, D.C. (Ben Wattenberg is a columnist tor N e w s p a p e r E n t e r p r i s e Association)