Since the Senate rejected the Test Ban Treaty last week, Al Gore has made
it very clear that he isn't like those narrow-minded, "breathtakingly
irresponsible" isolationist Republicans who killed it. No indeed. The Vice
President is so broad minded, in fact, that he has been on both sides of
this issue. The Republican National Committee has compiled quotes that
demonstrate that Gore opposed a test ban treaty for most of the last
twenty years.
In a 1987 debate on arms control in Des Moines, Iowa, Gore explained that
he would not seek a treaty with the Soviet Union until finding out 1)
whether it we can "firmly verify" compliance and 2) whether "we need
continued tests to assure the reliability of our own nuclear devices." He
added that "if we do not have any confidence in the reliability of our
deterrent weapons, then we have thrown away deterrence without having
anything to substitute for it. Simply good will, good faith, or are we
going to take a realistic approach to this?" Jesse Helms was making
similar arguments last week.
Gore continued to position himself as a Sam Nunn-style Southern defense
hawk during Senate debates in 1988 and 1992. He argued against even a
one-kiloton limit on nuclear tests back then. Now, however, he has only
scorn for test-ban opponents: "A small, willful group of Republicans
listened to a tiny minority of right-wing extremists and took an action
that is contrary to what the American people feel." We can only conclude
that one of Gore's close relatives must have died in a nuclear test during
the last seven years.
Rudy Giuliani leads Hillary Clinton by 11 percentage points, 51 percent to
40 percent, says a new Zobgy poll of likely voters in the New York Senate
race. Giuliani is way ahead among independents (65 to 27) and Catholics
(60 to 34), and runs neck-and-neck with the First Lady among Jews,
Protestants, and women.
