The Week

Washington Post columnist Haynes Johnson observes that “the sensational charges and countercharges surrounding the ‘Libyan hitmen squad’ reports are setting a new standard of incredibility.” The “public nature of the accusations,” he adds, furrowing the Johnson brow, “raises serious questions” about them. The Administration “has been building a concerted case, through statements and leaks to the press, of the gravest sort of charges against Qaddafi and his regime.” Imagine that! Against poor Qaddafi, who was calling for Anwar Sadat’s death up to the day before his assassination! Look at it this way, Haynes— suppose Qaddafi had a CIA, with no Tripoli Ethics Committee restraining it?

Alfred E. Kahn, the Carter Administration’s antiinflation shaman, has at fellow liberals in Challenge magazine. “. . . They have devoted too much of their energies … to promoting the competitive scramble for income shares. Liberals have been much too hesitant to admit that a labor union can do wrong. There is something that still offends them in saying, ‘You know, the automobile workers have really been screwing the rest of us, including their own unemployed,’ because the UAW is a good union and Doug Fraser is an enlightened union leader.” Asked by the interviewer to explain the phrase “screwing the rest of us,” Kahn continues: “By having automobile wages increase twice as much as average wages in the last decade, and by sitting by while that was simply translated into higher and higher prices of poor-quality cars. The automobile workers who have retained their jobs have been exploiting those who have lost their jobs, who are now losing their homes in Detroit and being forced to uproot themselves and move down to Houston. In effect, the auto workers are also exploiting the ladies’ garment workers and others who have been getting wage increases lower than the national average. Liberals should consider the exploitation of market power just as offensive when wielded by unions as by industry, even when those unions are wellrun, not corrupt, not feather-bedding.”

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Washington Post columnist Haynes Johnson observes that “the sensational charges and countercharges surrounding the ‘Libyan hitmen squad’ reports are setting a new standard of incredibility.” The “public nature of the accusations,” he adds, furrowing the Johnson brow, “raises serious questions” about them. The Administration “has been building a concerted case, through statements and leaks to the press, of the gravest sort of charges against Qaddafi and his regime.” Imagine that! Against poor Qaddafi, who was calling for Anwar Sadat’s death up to the day before his assassination! Look at it this way, Haynes— suppose Qaddafi had a CIA, with no Tripoli Ethics Committee restraining it?

Alfred E. Kahn, the Carter Administration’s antiinflation shaman, has at fellow liberals in Challenge magazine. “. . . They have devoted too much of their energies … to promoting the competitive scramble for income shares. Liberals have been much too hesitant to admit that a labor union can do wrong. There is something that still offends them in saying, ‘You know, the automobile workers have really been screwing the rest of us, including their own unemployed,’ because the UAW is a good union and Doug Fraser is an enlightened union leader.” Asked by the interviewer to explain the phrase “screwing the rest of us,” Kahn continues: “By having automobile wages increase twice as much as average wages in the last decade, and by sitting by while that was simply translated into higher and higher prices of poor-quality cars. The automobile workers who have retained their jobs have been exploiting those who have lost their jobs, who are now losing their homes in Detroit and being forced to uproot themselves and move down to Houston. In effect, the auto workers are also exploiting the ladies’ garment workers and others who have been getting wage increases lower than the national average. Liberals should consider the exploitation of market power just as offensive when wielded by unions as by industry, even when those unions are wellrun, not corrupt, not feather-bedding.”