■ Senator Ted went forth to Berlin and repeated JFK’s glowing phrase, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” which still means “I am a jelly doughnut” in German. For once, nothing is lost in translation.
■ It is year end, and, in a ruminative mood, we pause to comment with some dismay on the disclosures about the grubby behavior of many Republican bigwigs. One thinks primarily, of course, of Samuel Pierce, who disgraced the top office of HUD, which takes a lot of doing since the office is vulnerably constituted. But it is plain that he was in the offensive tradition of the Harding Republicans. And so was James Watt, who got paid $300,000 for one influence-peddling telephone call. His statement that he too disapproved of that kind of thing, but after all, it’s the world we live in, does not tell us why he didn’t take a stand against such a world when he held high office. Senator D’Amato is a more or less consistent disappointment nowadays, and his involvement with HUD requires an explanation (to other muses than those that will ponder, when he comes up again, his vote against Robert Bork and against aid to El Salvador). The savings-and-loan scandal is ecumenical, indeed more heavily fingerprinted by Democrats than Republicans; but the spectacle of Charles Keating, Republican financier, supporting Democratic left-winger Alan Cranston, is itself a cameo of corruption across party lines. What to do, other than remind ourselves that the combination of freedom and big government always, yes always, breeds corruption?—which does not, however, excuse the corrupters.
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