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Next week will mark the 40th anni
versary of D-Day. To many Americans
it could just as easily be 400 years as 40
years. But to those who were there and
for those who remember, it still remains
a special event.
It was, truly, one of the most un
selfish moments in history one nation
taking back a continent that had
been stolen by another nation. And the
motives were not those of greed or
corporate conquest but rather moral
ity. It was done because it was the right
thing to do.
Sadly, the element of morality seems
to have faded from American foreign
policy since then. America chooses her
allies now not on the basis of right and
wrong, but on the basis of "What's in it
for us?"
Thus we see the ugly spectacle of
America suckling up to nations run by
little despots whose only redeeming
feature is their "anti-communism."
These are the kind of people that D
Day was supposed to rid us of.
President Reagan likes to wave the
flag and harken back to those glorious
days of yesteryear to justify his foreign
policy adventures.
Reaean is unable, or unwilling, to
accept the fact that life is not a Western
movie. He sees the Soviet Union as an
"evil empire." That kind of namecalling
doesn't lead to anything constructive.
It only makes the President of the
United States look like a buffoon in the
court of world opinion.
Of course, this administration has
shown that international opinion or
international law, for that matter is
something that can't be trifled with. .
With Memorial Day just gone by, we
should be all the more aware of the
potential cost in lives that Reagan's
foreign policy represents. It has already
cost this nation almost 300 lives in
Lebanon and Grenada. That's not a big
number in the stat books of history,
but that doesn't diminish its impor
tance. So, the next time you hear the presi
dent raving aboutour American heroes,
remember this: Most heroes are dead.
This country has enough dead heroes.
Let's try to ensure tnat no more get
added to the rolls in the next few
years.
Jeff Goodwin
Front-runner now
not necessarily
nomination winner
Imagine what vials of venom would be uncorked if
Democrats, convened in San Franciso, attempt to
nominate someone other than Gary Hart or Walter
Mondale. That merriment probably will not be, if
only because Mondale, that enemy of fun, may win
something New Jersey would suffice on June 5.
However, because a deliberative convention this
year is still a faintly glimmering possibility, it is
useful to say why such a convention would not
necessarily involve the overthrow of political fairness.
George Will
The point is this: The pre-convention process
should be considered market research. It should not
be considered a process that must morally must
confer the nomination on one participant.
Since 1968, reforms of the nomination process
have been designed to make it virtually certain that
conventions will not be deliberative bodies. Rather,
they will be ratifying bodies, ratifying decisions
made elsewhere. But in 1980 the Democratic Party
said that in 1984 delegates would be free to vote
their "consciences," even on the first ballot. Further
more, the convention will be leavened by more than
500 delegates who are party or elected officials and
who, presumably, will help concentrate the conven
tion's mind on nominating someone electable.
Some persons who say the cbnvention irfust not
improvise beyond the choice of Hart or Mondale are
saying, effectively, this: Democrats regulate them
selves by principles too lofty to allow them to
exercise a right they acquired in 1980 in the name of
lofty principle conscience.
They may have such principles, but the Demo
cratic Party's considerable entertainment value
derives in part from the fact that in the span of a few
years it can embrace opposite principles with equal
T t! Daily -n
EDITOR
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imn Nyffeier
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The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144-080) is published by the
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Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and com
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0443! ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1984 DAILY NEBRASKAN
T; 1 x. . i
I, M J I
A.. ,U4 imjh, A
i-jrfZrfjrl ' , """" wk v-W iV 1, M
t L 1
1 a
-f vs.
i
ardor. Consider, for example, Vietnam, or defense
spending, or government action that takes notice of
race. Democrats believe everything at full throttle:
Every conviction is natural law, graven by the finger
of God on the conscience of humanity but
changeable by the vote of any platform committee.
In 1980 the party decided that hereafter (mean
ing until the ideological winds shift) delegates can
harken to their consciences (meaning their eye for
the main chance). And in 1984, with the two
finalists staggering toward San Francisco in a ter
minal clinch, some Democrats think that both Hart
and Mondale have been market-tested and found
wanting.
The pre-convention contest is a protracted test of
some eligible candidates. The operative word is
"some." If the winnowing process leaves a choice
that the convention considers unnecessarily un
satisfactory, why should there not be a brief, intense
second act, a mid-course correction - call it what
you will?
No outcome on June 5 will alter this fact: The
Democratic contest that began five months ago
began with the party feeling uneasy about the
candidates in the field, and it is ending with the
party feeling even more so. Now, suppose that on
June 5 Mondale loses California and New Jersey but
limps toward the convention with a plurality of
delegates.
Many Democrats say. We must not pick someone
who has not run the gauntlet since Iowa, because
other persons have not "paid their dues." Dues?
What are we running, a country club or a country?
The ethical judgment packed into the "dues" argu
ment collapses on inspection.
The cluster of candidates that goes to the starting
blocks two years before a convention is entirely self
selected. It is unreasonable to believe that thereafter
the party has no choice other than to pick from the
few who, two years earlier, picked themselves.
One worthwhile element of recent reforms of the
delegate-selection process requires that delegates
be selected in a reasonably short period before the
convention. Previously some were selected well back
in the year before. Why, then, is it wrong for a
convention to enlarge a field of candidates that has
never been large and has been effectively closed for
more than a year?
Of course no candidate who has survived until the
convention will yield quietly, or be advised to yield
by the hot-eyed young operators who surround him
and who already have selected their White House
offices. They can always say, with reason: Remember
1948. Then the Democratic Party splintered on the
left (Henry Wallace's Progressives) and right (Strom
Thurmond's Dixicrats) and won anyway.
But should the occasion arise this year, Democrats
should have a good conscience about voting what
they smilingly call their consciences, Because Mon
dale has done best, a deliberative convention
probably! should pick one of his supporters, but
there are lots of them, and if Democrats cannot spot
the obvious one Mario Cuomo, the governor of
New York they can not spot a rose among
rutabaga
tS34, Washington Post Writers Group
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials represent official policy of
the summer 1984 Daily Nebraskan. They are written
by this summer's editor in chief, Lauri Hopple.
Other staff members will write editorials through
out the summer. They will carry the author 's name
after the final sentence.
Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of
Daily Nebraskan
the university, its employees, the students or theNU
Board of Regents.
The Daily Nehraskan's publishers are the regents,
who established the UNL Publications Board to
supervise the daily production of the newspaper.
According to the policy set by the regents respon
sibility for the con tent of the newspaper lies solely
in the hands of its student editors.
Tuesday, May 29, 1984
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