NEW YORK (AP) - In an angry
Harlem debate, Bill Bradley accused
A1 Gore of trying to conceal his record
as “a conservative congressman,” and
the vice president said his rival’s tactics
“divide us as Democrats” instead of
dealing with the Republican enemy in
the campaign for the White House.
In the historic Apollo Theatre, to
the cheers, and sometimes jeers, of a
largely black audience, Gore and
Bradley began by promising that they
would act against racial profiling.
Bradley demanded to know why
the vice president hadn’t gone down
the hall to get President Clinton to
make an executive order outlawing
racial profiling. Gore shot back that
racial profiling practically began in
Bradley’s New Jersey.
The exchange was prompted by the
leadoff question, accorded to The Rev.
A1 Sharpton. “Many in our community
have to live in fear of both the cops and
the robbers,” the black activist said,
asking how they would deal with
police brutality and racial profiling
while avoiding an increase in crime.
In a high profile case, Amadou
Diallo, an unarmed black man, died in
a barrage of 41 police bullets a year
ago in his Bronx apartment building.
White police officers say they fired
upon him after he refused orders to halt
and appeared to draw a gun, although
die black object in his hand was a wal
let.
Bradley said racial profiling is a
state of mind in which a policeman
sees a wallet in the hands of a white
man as what it is, “and a wallet in the
hand of a black man as a gun,” as in the
Diallo shooting.
He said he would issue an execu
tive order against racial profiling and
would declare “quite clearly that white
Americans can no longer deny the
plight of black Americans.”
“If you elect me to the presidency,
the first civil rights act of the 21st cen
tury will be a federal law outlawing
racial profiling,” Gore said.
He said it would cover not only law
enforcement, but all aspects of
American society.
Bradley asked why the administra
tion has not produced an executive
order.
“I am questioning why you haven’t
done that or why you haven’t made this
happen in the past seven and a half
years,” Bradley said.
Gore said Clinton has issued a
directive to prepare for an executive
order.
“You know racial profiling practi
cally began in New Jersey, senator,”
Gore shot back.
Profiling episodes involving state
troopers led New Jersey to appoint a
civilian monitor against the practice.
Gore, when asked about repara
tions from the government to atone for
slavery, said, “I believe the best repara
tion is a good education” and affirma
tive action to open opportunities to
black Americans. He said general repa
rations would not be approved by
Congress.
Bradley accused Gore of trying to
end affirmative action at the federal
level, which the vice president vehe
mently denied. He said his program for
overhauling the bureaucracy as vice
president was against quotas, not affir
mative action.
Reaching across the three feet sep
arating their lecterns, Bradley held out
a sheaf of documents he said docu
mented five votes by Gore between
1979 and 1981 to preserve the tax
exempt status of colleges that racially
discriminate.
In those votes, Gore split with
members of the Congressional Black
Caucus, including New York Rep.
Charlie Rangel, a leading Gore sup
porter.
“You have to face up to this if
you’re going to be a strong leader,”
Bradley said.
Gore refused to take the papers and
explained away the votes as “a vote on
quotas.”
In turn, he challenged Bradley to
explain a 1995 vote that Gore
described as a rejection of expanding
minority ownership of broadcast out
lets.
Bradley pressed his own point, and
Gore was jeered when he cut his rival
off.
“You’re sounding a little desperate
because you’re trying to build yourself
up by tearing everybody else down,”
Gore said.
Clinton ranks 21st
in C-SPAN ratings
WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Clinton rates near the top
for managing the economy and pur
suing equal justice, but dead last
when measured for “moral authori
ty,” according to a ranking of presi
dents by 58 historians.
Overall among presidents,
Clinton comes across in the middle,
21st out of 41 men who have occu
pied the Oval Office.
Two other presidents marked by
scandal - Richard Nixon and
Warren Harding - came in just
above Clinton in the historians’
view of moral leadership.
The academics rated Abraham
Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
George Washington, Theodore
Roosevelt and Harry Truman as the
best leaders overall in a survey con
ducted by the cable public affairs
television network C-SPAN.
Historians from across the polit
ical spectrum rated the 41 men who
have served in the White House on
10 qualities. The academics were
asked to rank presidents using a
scale of one to 10, with 10 being
“very effective.”
Clinton rates 20th in crisis lead
ership; 21st in international rela
tions; 21st in administrative skills;
22nd in vision; and 21st in perfor
mance.
His high scores are in pursuing
equal justice (fifth), economic man
agement (fifth) and public persua
sion (11th); his low scores were in
congressional relations (36th) and
moral authority (41st).
“President Clinton came into
office with a three-part strategy for
the economy: fiscal discipline,
investing in people and opening
markets abroad to benefit American
workers,” White House spokesman
Joel Johnson said Monday.
Scattered showers Rain
high 64, low 46 high 60, low 42
Nebraskan
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THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Reform fails to curb
excessive spending
WASHINGTON (AP) - A system
designed to rid the Pentagon of outra
geously-priced hammers and multi
page cookie specifications has sped up
purchases but produced new excesses
such as a $251 compressor seal and a
$714 electrical bell.
The Clinton administration has
been trying to make its military pur
chasing system more like corporate
America, where speed and volume dis
counts are emphasized and detailed
product specifications and cost analy
ses usually are scrapped.
But an Associated Press review of
military records found the system that
is faster and less burdensome to indus
try isn’t always cheaper - producing
purchases like a $76 screw.
Some defense officials worry that
too much emphasis is being placed on
speed, forcing purchasing officers to
shy away from demanding cost figures
from contractors for fear it might slow
down orders.
“I think there’s a real morale prob
lem,” said Robert Lieberman, the
Pentagon’s assistant inspector general
for auditing. “I think as a practical mat
ter, people are going to cut corners.
They will be criticized severely for
slowing down.”
Air Force Maj. Joe Besselman,
who has studied the new purchasing
system, found officials made good
bargains on volume purchases but still
, got gouged on smaller orders.
For instance, using wholesale com
mercial prices as a guide j he found a
15-cent O-ring gasket was purchased
by the DOD for $30, a 40-cent elec
tronic part known as a diode cost tax
payers $4.50 and a 60-cept transistor
went for $7.60. He also found that the
same turbine blades bought for $ 19.80
cost $63.70 when not part of a high
volume purchase. And a jet engine part
cost $251 in volume, but $768 when
just 15 were bought.
Such examples have led a watch
dog group in Washington to conclude
the Clinton administration’s reinvent
ing government program - which has
endorsed the emphasis on speed over
cost analysis - placed too much price
setting powers in the* hands of
Pentagon contractors.
“The defense industry succeeded
beyond its wildest dreams,” the Project
on Government Oversight concluded.
“Unfortunately, the defense industry
took the wisdom of the Reinventing
Government campaign and pushed it
much too far.”
((I think there s a
real morale
problem. I think
as a practical •
matter, people
are going to cut
corners. They
will be criticized
severely for
slowing down.”
Robert Lieberman
Pentagon assistant inspector
Administration officials dismiss
the criticism, saying they have
reshaped a purchasing system that in
the 1980s made headlines for buying
$435 hammers and $640 airplane toi
lets.
The critics have “tied our learning
to do business smarter with giving
away the farm,” said Stan Z. Soloway, a
top Defense acquisition official.
“That’s just nonsense.”
Soloway said 30-day delivery
times for items have been halved.
Large-volume discounts are negotiat
ed. And chocolate-chip cookies are
bought in normal packages, eliminat
ing military specifications that in the
past mandated that a cookie’s “diame
ter at its greatest dimension shall be not
less than 2 5/16 inches.”
The new concept is to buy com
mercial products whenever possible,
bargaining hard for the best price while
eliminating detailed specifications and
company cost analyses that in the past
drove up prices.
In the old system, the Pentagon
would make contractors divulge and
justify their actual costs for products
made to exact specifications. Now,
defense contracting officials are pre
vented under the law from learning a
company’s costs for producing any
product deemed to be commercially
available.
Instead of demanding cost analy
ses, defense officials simply try to
negotiate the best price, buying in
bulk..
■Senegal
Four killed, 20 injured in rebel
attack in Senegal
DAKAK, Senegal (Ar) -
Separatist guerrillas in Senegal
ambushed two tour buses, killing two
soldiers and two tour guides and
injuring about 20 European tourists,
Senegalese newspapers reported
Monday.
The government-owned newspa
per Le Soleil said the attack on the
buses occurred Sunday at Kaliane
village near Ziguinchor, the capital of
the southern region of Casamance,
where rebels have fought a 16-year
war for independence.
Details of the attack were unclear.
Senegalese military officials refused
to confirm the incident, and the iden
tities and nationalities of the tourists
were not immediately known.
The Casamance region, about
150 miles south of the capital of
Dakar and known for its forests and
beaches, has been a popular resort
destination for French tourists, who
make up the overwhelming majority
of overseas visitors to the region.
■ Kenya
Two Kenyan parliament
members shot, wounded
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A gun
man shot and seriously wounded two
members of parliament traveling in a
vehicle, police said Monday.
Sammy Leshore and Mohammed
Shidiye of the ruling Kenya African
National Union party were waiting
for police late Sunday night after
being involved in a traffic accident
when a lone gunman opened fire on
the men, police said.
No one was injured in the crash
between Leshore’s all-terrain vehicle
and a public minibus in the capital of
Nairobi.
The assailant escaped on foot, the
statement said.
■Boston
Legendary Abiel Smith School
reopens as tribute
BUS 1 UN (Ar) - 1 he nation s
first combined primary and sec
ondary public school for blacks
reopened Monday as a permanent
tribute to this city’s often turbulent
history of race in schools.
At the time the Abiel Smith
School opened in 1835, blacks in the
South remained in slavery, and most
states had laws against teaching
blacks to read. In Massachusetts,
slavery was illegal, but schools were
segregated. j
The Smith School closed in 1855
when the Legislature outlawed segre
gation in schools.
The Museum of Afro-American
History completed a $ 1.6 million ren
ovation of the school with federal
grants and donations. The two-story
building in the city’s Beacon Hill
neighborhood will include exhibits
on black leaders in the post-Civil War
era, genealogy and the Abolition
movement.
■ Atlanta
Georgia House passes bill
changing execution method
ATLANTA (AP) - Afraid the
U.S. Supreme Court will ban die elec
tric chair, the Georgia House voted
overwhelmingly Monday to phase
out electrocution and execute inmates
by lethal injection.
The bill passed 162-10. If it is
approved by the Senate and signed
into law, Georgia will follow Florida
as the second state to switch to lethal
injection this year out of concern he
high court will outlaw the elect -ic
chair as cruel and imusual puni h
ment.
