The Week

■ Meanwhile, in Darkest Washington, Sen. Hugh Scott has been elected Minority Leader. Sen. Scott’s claim to leadership consists of the demonstrated ability to vote against his party one half the time, thus maintaining its Minority status, and of his presence in the Republican Party, which has the same effect.

■ Everybody is pooh-poohing President Nixon’s draft cutbacks as a foredoomed attempt to defuse campus opposition to the war. Nixon knows that’s impossible: As Hanoi has ignored concession after concession, the domestic antiwar movement has been pushed further and further to the left. As for the campus hard Left, nothing the Administration does about the war, the draft or anything else will be satisfactory. Rather, Nixon sought to consolidate his position with square, off-campus America. When the campus-centered protests turn nasty (as they seem likely to do), he can wave draft reform as an olive branch spurned at home while Hanoi was spurning others abroad. Along with the cutbacks, Nixon prodded Congress (which has been sitting on his draft reform proposals since May) to get busy. One hopes the President will carry out his threat to take “unilateral action” on the draft if Congress continues inactive; one wonders whether he should give another earnest of his determination in this field, by replacing General Lewis Hershey as the superannuated symbol of a superannuated system.

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■ Meanwhile, in Darkest Washington, Sen. Hugh Scott has been elected Minority Leader. Sen. Scott’s claim to leadership consists of the demonstrated ability to vote against his party one half the time, thus maintaining its Minority status, and of his presence in the Republican Party, which has the same effect.

■ Everybody is pooh-poohing President Nixon’s draft cutbacks as a foredoomed attempt to defuse campus opposition to the war. Nixon knows that’s impossible: As Hanoi has ignored concession after concession, the domestic antiwar movement has been pushed further and further to the left. As for the campus hard Left, nothing the Administration does about the war, the draft or anything else will be satisfactory. Rather, Nixon sought to consolidate his position with square, off-campus America. When the campus-centered protests turn nasty (as they seem likely to do), he can wave draft reform as an olive branch spurned at home while Hanoi was spurning others abroad. Along with the cutbacks, Nixon prodded Congress (which has been sitting on his draft reform proposals since May) to get busy. One hopes the President will carry out his threat to take “unilateral action” on the draft if Congress continues inactive; one wonders whether he should give another earnest of his determination in this field, by replacing General Lewis Hershey as the superannuated symbol of a superannuated system.