Credit where it’s due. Washington Post columnist David Broder says: “If the Persian Gulf has proved anything it is that we bought a lot more in the military buildup of the 1980s [under Ronald Reagan] than the overpriced toilet seats Pentagon critics held up to constant ridicule. That buildup gave us an airlift and sealift capacity that made this deployment a logistic miracle. The fear of America’s air and ground weaponry caused Saddam Hussein to halt his advance—and would be the telling difference if war comes.” . . . Evans & Novak estimate there are a thousand Soviet military advisors in Iraq (not the hundred or so Gorbachev admits to) to help service the $23.5 billion worth of military equipment the USSR sold Iraq between 1982 and 1989. . . . The terrorist core of Palestine liberation movement—Abu Nidal, George Habash, Abu Ibrahim, Abu Abbas—have relocated to Baghdad. Abu Abbas, who engineered Achille Lauro hijacking, has called for the overthrow of all Arab regimes that oppose Saddam. . . . Ten Arab countries that support Saudi Arabia have notified Peking they will pull out of Asian Olympics if Iraq is allowed to compete. Chamanlal Mehta, secretary general of Asian Olympics, says a vote of participating nations on Iraq’s status will be taken September 20. . . . The Nation has blasted President Bush’s Middle Eastern initiative as “naked imperial intervention” and predicts that Bush’s policy, like “many of Hollywood’s disappointing summer blockbusters that started out big, [will shrivel] after a few weeks.” . . . Pollster Everett Carll Ladd begs to differ. A study of public opinion in last fifty years, says Ladd, indicates future support for Bush initiative will “depend not on supposedly fickle patience, but upon whether the public sees the policy being effectively advanced.” Late polls show American support of military action against Iraq ranging from low of 64 per cent (Gallup) to high of 79 per cent (ABC News).
Returning congressmen are getting an alarming message: the country is fed up with spendthrift government. Seventy per cent of voters in recent New York Times/CBS poll said they would be less likely to support a congressman who voted to increase his own salary; 59 per cent feel no serious effort has been made by Congress to decrease the deficit. . . . Gov. Jim Florio of New Jersey, elected in a landslide in November, has seen his approval rating slip to 23 per cent after ramming through major new taxes. . . . There’s a chance that Republican Dan Mangini could win in Florio’s old, heavily Democratic 1st CD in November, so deep is the anti-tax feeling. … In California, Tom Hayden’s Big Green environmental proposition on the November ballot—which would cost state and local governments an estimated $3 billion a year—is running into trouble. Passage no longer seems assured. . . . Connecticut newspapers and commentators having fine old time with Lowell Weicker’s reluctance fully to disclose his finances. They’re trotting out a statement he made in U.S. Senate back in 1977: “A no-exceptions policy of financial disclosure,” said Weicker at the time, “will ensure accountable ethics rather than a muddle of self-regulation.” . . . According to National Journal, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who replaced Weicker in ’88, is “the most conservative Northern Democrat” in the Senate. In past two years Lieberman has supported a) aid to anti-Communist forces in Cambodia, b) restoration of Oliver North’s pension, c) a capitalgains tax cut, and d) Noriega’s removal from Panama, by force if necessary, prior to the fact. Lieberman’s ACU rating is 32 per cent; Weicker’s lifetime rating was 4 per cent. . . . Other House races of interest: Georgia’s 4th CD, where conservative State Rep. John Linder is gaining on incumbent, actor Ben Jones. (Jones won in 1988 against Rep. Pat Swindall, who was under indictment at time.) Jones is one of twenty endangered congressmen this year, according to Roll Call magazine. . . . Another of the endangered twenty is California Democrat George Brown, in 36th CD (ACU: 10; ADA: 75). A recent Wirthlin poll shows Brown can be beaten. Poll shows only 14 per cent of voters strongly approve Brown’s handling of his job; an incumbent is in real danger, says Wirthlin, when that number is under 30 per cent. Brown’s opponent is San Bernardino County supervisor Bob Hammock.
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