Copyright c 1994 by Nicholas Johnson
Cedar Rapids [Iowa] Gazette, Sunday, January 30, 1994, p. 6A.

Bill Clinton is not sleeping on the job -- but are you?

[as headlined by Cedar Rapids Gazette; originally titled by author:  "Ask Not
What You Can Do To Your President"]

Everyone's rushing to issue report cards on the Clintons' first year.  Have they
eliminated the multi-trillion-dollar debt, stopped the world's 100-plus wars,
provided health care for all?  Guess we'll have to grade them down.

Besides, what about those trooper stories?  And the whitewash of Whitewater?

We have a First Amendment right to create for our President the sensation that
he and his wife are being eaten by ducks.  The courts have virtually eliminated
their right to sue for defamation -- even when we, or the media, lie about them.

In fact, there are a lot of damn fool things we Americans can do with the full
protection of the law.  But that doesn't mean it's smart to do them.  Deliberately
crippling a president makes even less sense than crippling an Olympic skater.

Our country -- and each of its 260 million inhabitants -- is confronting some
very serious risks right now.  The challenges to global peace are indeed a "new
world order."  It's not clear where the Eastern European and former Soviet
republics will come down.  World-wide economic recession and third world
starvation feed revolution. We're adjusting to NAFTA and the GATT.  

We have public and private debt of $20,000 for every American adult and child. 
We must improve our educational system.  Bridges, roads, water mains (our
"infrastructure") are crumbling.  Gun deaths, violence, crime, alcohol and other
drugs take their toll -- and require more than less parole and more penitentiaries.

The media and its audience seem to prefer trivial diversions to serious treatment
of such topics -- including the Clintons' proposed solutions.  We neither inform
ourselves on the issues nor write our elected representatives.  We don't even
insist that our local TV news give us more than homicides, auto accidents,
weather, sports and commercials.

We permit a political system in which candidates take millions of dollars from
special interests.  To run for reelection some U.S. senators have to raise as
much as $10,000 a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, for the full six
years of office.  We oppose "public financing of campaigns" (although it works
well for the presidential race).  So we have a different form of public finance,
with contributors getting back roughly $2000 in tax and subsidy benefits for
every dollar they contribute.

The wonder is not that special interests have the power they do.  The wonder is
that a President can get any legislation passed which they oppose.

One of the best kept secrets in Washington is how little power the President has. 
Theodore Roosevelt called the presidency "a bully pulpit," but with little more
power than the opportunity to persuade.  Franklin Roosevelt told a group of
visitors that, while he agreed with them on policy, they would have to organize
the public to "force" him to do what he wanted to do anyway.  Harry Truman
told how quickly he discovered that pushing a button, or even pounding on it,
produced little or no change.  Lyndon Johnson's famous powers of persuasion
were just that, not access to secret buttons of presidential power.

What we saw in Governor Clinton is what we got in President Clinton.  He's
prepared himself from an early age for the job.  He brings a raw intellectual and
analytical power, incredible grasp of factual detail, years of experience as well
as education, a physical stamina that rivals the Energizer bunny, and a relatively
ego-free willingness to give and take.  Unlike many American politicians, this
President can actually talk knowledgeably, in complete sentences, without a
script.  He does not seem to be mean spirited.  [His policy positions and daily
interactions appear driven by genuine compassion. [Sentence deleted from
printed version by Cedar Rapids Gazette editor.]]  He has an agenda, but also
the capacity for compromise in the political "art of the possible."

Perfection in the Presidency?  Scarcely.  But far better than we deserve.

President Clinton has acknowledged that he needs focus, and has taken steps to
find it.  But so should we.  He's acknowledged some mistakes.  So should we. 
America will never work, regardless of who is in the White House, if we just
vote for a President (or fail to), and then relax with the televised side shows for
four years.  Democracy means self government by an informed and active
citizenry.  He's not sleeping on the job.  Are we?
_______________
Nicholas Johnson held Presidential appointments in the Johnson and Carter
Administrations [and teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law.  [Clause
deleted from printed version by Cedar Rapids Gazette editor.]]

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