Page 4-Wednesday, June 14, 1978-The Michigan Daily

michigan DAILY
Eighty-eight Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Ml. 48109
Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 30-S News Phone: 764-0552
Wednesday, June 14, 1978
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
High Court can't
limit Bakke ruling
NE XT MONDAY is the final day of this
session of the U.S. Supreme Court. And as
the day approaches educators, students, civil
rights leaders and lawyers are anxiously
awaiting a decision in the much publicized
Bakke case.
This case has been dubbed the most important
since the 1954 school desegregation case, but it
may instead be the year's biggest disappoin-
tment for both sides. Most Supreme Court obser-
vers have predicted a narrow ruling, which
means the Court would decide the issue of Bakke
vs. University of California-Davis only,
sidestepping the more crucial issue of affir-
mative action programs in general.
If the Court follows this line, it will be shirking
its responsibility. At most such a ruling would
postpone a decision on the broader issues for a
year of two-a time during which no one will be
sure about affirmative action programs.
Anything but total support from the Court for
such programs will reduce their effectiveness. If
the court postpones a precedent-setting decision
by making a limited ruling, it will place affir-
mative action in a state of limbo. Universities
and businesses may decide to wait until the
Court eventually decides the issue before en-
couraging such programs, which would be a
devastating blow to millions of disadvantaged
minorities and women.
Our stance on the issue of affimative action
programs has been stated many times - we
strongly support them. We also favor the use of
quotas, when necessary to ensure complian-
ce with such programs, and as such, we support
the University of California-Davis in its case
against Allan Bakke. We can only sit now and
wait hopefully for the Court to live up to its
responsibilities and make a broad ruling in favor
of the women and minorities of this country.
Nxo s's EVEHC-

President Baker?

By Keith Richburg
WASHINGTON (Jan. 20, 1981)
- Howard Baker was today
sworn in as the 39th president of
the United States, and pledged to
restore "the new faith inhthe old
American dream" that had been
lost during the last two decades of
uncertainty.
Baker, in his twenty minute
inaugural address, also promised
to "bring the country back to
normality," to heal partisan
schisms, and to work toward
restoring America's world
stature as a great nation.
VICE-PRESIDENT James
Thompson, who was sworn in
shortly before President Baker,
voiced similar themes in his own,
briefer address, in which he
pledged the new administration's
commitment to arms reduction,
and to "pursuing morality both at
home and in our foreign affairs."
Outgoing President Jimmy
Carter appeared haggard and
worn during the inaugural
ceremony, while he watched the
man who defeated him for the
presidency being sworn in.
Presient Baker's inaugural ad-
dress was almost identical to the
speech that ex-President Carter
made in the same spot just four
years before.
BAKER WON THEpresidency
after a hard-fought and often bit-
ter campaign in which he often
accused the former president of
"lying to the American people"
and "betraying the trust" of
those who elected him in 1976.
Some political observers,
however, attribute Baker's vic-
tory to the unified Republican
party that had nominated him, in
sharp contrast to Carter who had
to contend with a long primary
battle for the nomination.
California Governor Edmund
Brown came within an eyelash of
wrestling the nomination away
from Carter, closer even than
Ronald Reagan came to ousting
Gerald Ford in 1976.
BROWN, WHO after the con-
vention voiced no regrets about
having divided the Democratic
Party and "delivering" the elec-
tion to President Baker, said he
felt compelled to contest Carter
bacause of the incumbent's "rec-
ord of inconsistency."
The one term Carter Presiden-
cy was indeed under fire almost
from the day it began. The peanut
farmer from Plains, Georgia,
was never able to dispel the
public's view of him as an
amateur who surrounded himself
with a too-young and too-
inexperienced staff.
Also, Carter, to many people,
never had a clear ideological
stand, but rather shifted between
liberal and conservative
positions while isolating both
sides.

hardline stands of his national
security advisor - for the
Russian role in Africa.
Even on presumably clear-cut
choices, like the B-1 bomber and
the neutron bomb, Carter always
managed to walk th6 tightrope
between distinct ideological
choices.
The so-called "Carter incon-
sistencies" began early in his
administration. He spoke of a
new morality in government, yet
when investigations revealed
that his old friend and budget
director Bert Lance was involved
in questionable finances, Carter
refused to ask Lance to step down

control of the destiny of the coun-
try, to espouse a clear ideological
philosophy, and to marshal the
powers of the presidency to pur-
sue stated goals. What people
didn't want was another
politician as president, to opt for
the great compromise on every
issue.
Had Carter risked isolating the
conservatives to pursue the very
"liberal" goals he stated in his
convention acceptance speech in
1976 - full employment and
national health insurance - then
the voters would have been given
a clear picture of Jimmy Carter.
As it was, his "politics of com-

---

"Baker won the pres-
idency after a hard-
fought and often bitter
campaign in which he
often accused the for-
mer president of 'lying
to the American peo-
ple' and 'betraying the
trust' of those who
elected #im in 1976. "


until the affair had done it's
political damage.
CARTER ALSO spoke of
abolishing the spoils system -
"cronyism" - in the selection of
federal judges and U.S. attor-
neys, yet he fired Republican
U.S. attorneys Philip Van Dam
in Detroit and Richard Marston
in Philadelphia, and he made his
old Georgia friend attorney
general.
In the end, the failure of Car-
ter's evangelical politics of rec-
tidude was that Carter himself
was more times not guilty of what
he accused others of. Also, by
refusing to carve out a
distinguishable political
philosophy, and by trying to
tightrope between competing in-
terests, Carter ended up isolating
all sides.
In short, Carter's failing may
have been the same shortcoming
that historian James McGregor
Burns attributed to Franklin
Delano Roosevelt.
BURNS SAID that Roosevelt
was "a followed, not a leader,"
always mirroring public opinion

promise" insulted the electorate
with only a vague outline and a
fuzzy image.
Americans have gone too long
without strong and determined
leadership to move the country in
a definite and discernable direc-
tion ever since a bullet in Dallas
changed the course of history.
Any leader who follows -
President Baker included - must
become the one to actually "get
the country moving again" after
two decades of stagnation.
Baker, as yet, is still too young
a president for us to determine
what course he will pursue for the
country. But unless he pursues
any course with some degree of
consistency, the void of leader-
ship that began in Dallas in 1963
will still have not been fulfilled.
And for the new president, he
may find himself having to ac-
count for his failures to fill that
void - to his party and to the
people - just like ex-President
Carter.
Daily staff writer Keith
Richburg is interning this
summer for The Washington
Post.


instead of being in advance of it,
shaping it, and using the
presidential power of persuasion to
marshal support for an in- _.
novative program.
Like the Roosevelt Burns

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