OPINION
The Michigan Daily
Page 4
Saturday, November 6, 1982
Will Reagan compromise?
Ma
By Helen Thomas
President Reagan's economic
revolution has not been totally stopped
in its tracks as a result of the midterm
election. But it won't have the clear
sailing he enjoyed in his first year in of-
fice.
The operative word until the returns
are fully digested is "compromise,"
with the Republicans controlling the
Senate by a slim margin and the
Democrats controlling the House by a
large margin.
REAGAN, WHO has been rigid in his
conservative ideology since the mid-
'60s, may have to moderate his views
and programs, and that won't be easy.
His agenda calls for more cutbacks in
social spending and clearly will involve
changes in the social system, either by
cutting benefits or raising taxes.
In the coming days, the president will
have to sit down with his key policy
makers and decide where he is going
for the next two years. Reagan's top
aides are all convinced he will run
again. The impending selection of Sen.
Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.), his close friend
and key 1980 campaign strategist, as
campaign chairman of the Republican
National Committee, is another sign
that Reagan likes being president and
wants to remain in the White House for
another term.
White House chief of staff James
Baker, in analyzing the returns, said
that the electorate is going with
Reagan's appeal that he needs more
time for his programs to work. He in-
sists that there has been no repudiation
of Reagan policies or programs.
BAKER'S analysis aside, the vote in
the hard-hit Midwest shows that the
blue-collar workers he had with him in 1980
have rejected his "stay the course"
slogan.
Nor did he offer any new hopes for the
millions who are in the unemployment
lines, except to promise a better future
and "a greater America."
But the president believes he has a
mandate to keep on doing what he is
doing, according to Baker.
REAGAN'S vigorous campaigning
over the past few months has focused
on a defense of his economic policies
and a strong attack on his
predecessors, particularly Jimmy Car-
ter.
He also laid heavy blame for the
deficits on the Great Society programs,
contending that he has done much bet-
ter for the poor by bringing inflation
down.
Reagan has never mentioned the cost
of the Vietnam War in the '60s and early
'70s as a contributing factor to the
deficits, or LBJ's failure to raise taxes
The president's pull in the House may have been weakened, but his ability to take his case to the
country on television should't be underestimated.
to pay for the war.
IN THE closing days of Congress,
Reagan's relations with Speaker
Thomas O'Neill-for all the overlay of
Irish humor-became downright acer-
bic. The lines are definitely drawn for
all the explanations that "we're friends
after six o'clock at night" facade.
There definitely will be a continuing
clash of ideologies in the next Congress.
Baker told reporters he expects the
House coalition of southern Democrats
and Republicans to hold on
issues Reagan may pursue de
Democratic gain in congr
seats.
But other observers beli
Reagan will have to be mor
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Wasserman
Vol. XCIII, No. 51
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
For some,
F EVERYTHING ELSE FAILS,
you can always peddle the movie
rights.
Take John DeLorean, for example.
His wife announced yesterday that he's
been besieged with offers for the film
rights to his life story. Fresh out of jail
on bail, DeLorean and his cocaine
scam already are on the multi-million
dollar Hollywood auction block.
By early next year, we may be
treated to "The John DeL'orean Story:
The Los Angeles Connection." Ads for
the movie come to mind: "Com-
miserate with John as his car company
goes down the drain. Thrill at hiss
financial wheeling and dealing. Gasp
with surprise as agents nab him
minutes before he completes his $200
million deal."
Such is the sordid stuff movies thrive
on. But more than pointing out the
lurid viewing habits of the American
public, these dramatizations reveal
that the rich are different-especially
when they break the law. It was tem-
1
crime pays
pting at first to feel sorry for
DeLorean. Poor John, he saw his life's
work crumble before he was driven to
desperate measures. But how much
will DeLorean really suffer? He may
serve an obligatory year or two in
prison and then sell his jailhouse story
to Newsweek. He may recoup his
financial losses completely through
book and movie deals and even turn a
neat profit on the whole affair.
DeLorean provides a lesson for us
all. It's better to be famous if you have
to go to jail. Just look at Timothy
Leary and G. Gordon Liddy. They took
Ann Arbor for thousands of dollars
Thursday night-with their pre-
packaged, completely legal ripoff
known as the Liddy-Leary debate.
These ex-cons have been able to mass
market their woes with unparalleled
success.
Take heart, John DeLorean, at
whatever luxury hotel you are. Crime
pays-if you don't really need to break
the law in the first place.
TIN15 I r- OF DIFFICULT
CN&E' IN OUR EC~ONOMAY-*
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ybe not
and more amenable to opposition
suggestions to get any new programs
through.
BAKER TOLD reporters on election
night the returns showed that Reaga
will be able to lead the country effec-
tively in the next two years.
The president, he says, scored in
several places where he campaigned
for individuals, particularly in what is
called "Reagan Country," such as
California and Nevada. He also lost out
in some areas where he had put in ap-
pearances for GOP candidates.
But still, the Reagan hopes that the
ideological conservative sweep in the
country that manifested itself in 198,
would continue on course wer
dissipated by the election results.
IT NOW seems unless he wants to
govern by veto, which was done by
President Ford following the 1974 mid-
term elections, the president is going to
have to play ball with the Democrats.
On the other hand, the power of the
White House cannot be underestimated,
nor can Reagan's ability to take his
case to the country on nations
AP Photo television.
The betting here is that he will not
selected bend too easily. He was not nicknamed
spite the "Dutch" for nothing.
essional
eve that Thomas covers the White House
e flexible for United Press International.
FANES CALL FOR. A NEW
BETWEN P MANAGEMENT
ley M YOUR Jo_
VU
ch depicting the biblical words,
"They shall beat their swords in-
to plowshares."
Reacting to the church's op-
position to state policy, Klau
Gysi, state secretary for church
affairs, informed Lutheran Chur-
ch officials that the patch no
longer was acceptable.'The chur-
ch then read the following from
the pulpit: "We have been told by
the state that wearing this patch
' in schools and in public will not be
tolerated. It has been misused for
the manifestation of an attitude
hostile to the state . . . Thos
refusing to remove the patch are
threatened with grave con-
sequences."
As if the quiet, albeit forceful,
intervention of Gysi was not suf-
ficient, Defense Minister Heinz
Hoffman, on submitting a new
ip was denied Military Service Bill to
legal rights. Parliament expanding military
wo-hour rally requirements, rebuked the chur-
vas rejected, ch when he said: "Peace and
resignation" socialism are inseparabl
bly forever, linked ... Socialism and - peace
onveniently still need our plowshares and our
Soviet swords."
ng more has As one East German observer
group. later remarked, "The new
but perhaps military law is designed to
occurred in threaten and intimidate the
past spring, broadening pacifist strata of the
is had been people as well as the churches
ch and state. which are trying to support
he Lutheran , them."
ed the con- c nm -rhf thechurch's ffor
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BONN, WEST GERMANY -
In contrast to the intense debate
in this country over the con-
sequences of nuclear war, and an
even more vigorous dispute in
West Germany over the
deployment of U.S. nuclear-
tipped missiles on European soil,
a sad silence has fallen over the
incipient peace movement on the
other side of the military
equator, according to reports
from Eastern Bloc countries.
During the past six months
both the Soviet and East German
governments have attempted to
extinguish those voices and sym-
bols calling for peace and disar-
mament. They have sought to
replace them with intellec-
tually suspicious propositions
that peace is only obtainable
through the military defense of
socialism, i.e., the Soviet Union
and East Germany.
SEVERAL OF the more recent
and striking illustrations of this
crackdown are the demise in the
Soviet Union of a small "peace
group" seeking a dialogue bet-
ween the United States and the
Soviet Union, and in East Ger-
many the silencing of the
Lutheran Church and its open
support for disarmament.
On June 4, 1982, an independent
movement "for establishing trust
between the U.S. and the
U.S.S.R." was launched by 11
nmript intMlie.ainak At an infnr.
A sad silen
on peace
from the
Eastern, BI
By Paul Magnelia
.
,,f.:
*
Jrl /,
Soviet/American television
debates screened in both
countries.
Stressing that they were not
dissidents and that their ac-
tivities were not directed against
Soviet authorities, they cited as
justification for their action
Leonid Brezhnev's message to
the U.N. special session on
disarmament in which he called
for trust-building measures bet-
ween America and the Soviet
Union.
THE OFFICIAL response to
this effort was swift. The two
mm.f sntrfim in the nunm
In the end, the grou
both a platform and
A request to hold a tv
in Moscow June 27 ,
and the "petition for
disappeared, proba
into the c
labyrinthian
bureaucracy. Nothir
been heard from this
A comparable, I
sadder, situation
East Germany this
For months tension
rising between chur
Indeed, since 1978 t
Church has nrntest