Presswatch/Speaking for Supply

...They plugged him as "a loyal Republican, a devoted Reaganite and a brilliant student of supply-side economics" who would be a perfect choice for Treasury Secretary...

...Reagan tax cut "were moved by unprecedented public demand" and "were reflecting the popular appeal of tax reduction...

...Before other journalists knew the difference between a supply-sider and an orthodox conservative-most still don't-Evans and Novak spotted the struggle between the two competitors for Reagan's economic soul as crucial to the economic success and political strength of his administration...

...For they get practically none...

...Evans and Novak explained the tax cut was just plain popular...

...Even the crowd at the Reagan White House piles on from time to time...

...Meanwhile, their new book-The Reagan Revolution - evoked a snotty, barely serious critique in the New York Times Book Review by James Fallows, the former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and normally a journalist of unusual thoughtfulness...

...The answer is the gold standard...

...Accordingly, the announcement Reagan would be able to function as president the very day after his shooting and might leave the hospital within two weeks was of vital importance...

...The orthodox conservatives scoff at the need for this...

...It began with fresh reporting: Kemp would oppose the new cuts in order to play up the need to move toward restoration of gold convertability...

...When the measure was overwhelmingly approved, they knew why...

...They spotted the gold issue months before anyone else and began proselytizing last summer for new gold adherents...

...One reason why Evans and Novak, a team for 18 years, earn so little credit is that their column is difficult to classify...

...Rather, they have a knack for touching off criticism that is not always good-natured...

...The administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, with whom Reagan often is compared, functioned efficiently without apparent disruption during three prolonged absences of the ailing president...

...Like proud and coquettish students at a prom, each has been eyeing the other, hoping for an invitation to dance," Time wrote in late May...

...Without Evans and Novak, the highly visible national debate on gold would not have erupted...

...And when nearly everyone in Washington-including ranking aides at the White House- was concluding that the tax bill would fail in Congress, Evans and Novak insisted passage was certain...

...They also counseled, starting back in the early months of the 1980 campaign, that Reagan would get into trouble if he turned from supply-side optimism to the gloomy austerity of old-fashioned conservative economics, say by proposing to slash Social Security benefits...

...Bringing down interest rates by permanently guaranteeing the value of the dollar, the gold standard would save at least $30 billion a year in federal debt service charges," they wrote...

...The White House senior staff, including the President's longtime servitors, seem closer to Bush than Reagan in lack of ideological intensity...

...Vice President George Bush has gained Reagan's confidence as witness his triumph over Secretary of State Alexander Haig in their power struggle...

...Then, it slid into analysis, endorsing the "widespread belief that budget director David Stockman's latest spending cuts while undercutting Reagan's defense aims, will not help the economy.'' Finally, it wound up with a thinly disguised appeal for Reagan to put consideration of the gold standard on his immediate agenda...

...One result was a spate of magazine and newspaper stories on reviving the gold standard...

...But even when Reagan picked conventional types like Donald Regan for his Cabinet, Evans and Novak did not alter their assessment of Reagan as a conserva-tive ideologue bent on radical change...

...It arose again during the transition, as Lee Lescaze of the Washington Post declared that Reagan ' 'seems to be remote from the process of shaping his administration...

...Unfortunately for Evans and Novak, there turned out to be a problem with the column...

...Desperate to show financial markets the administration was serious about budget cutting, he turned to Social Security cuts...

...There is one further lesson that may be missed at the White House," they added...

...It failed to reconcile the two...

...Now Evans and Novak are conservative and thus baldly sympathetic to Reagan, but so are James J. Kilpatrick, George Will, and William F. Buckley, Jr...

...How so...

...I fell in with this line of thinking, writing in the Baltimore Sun the day after the election that Reagan's victory "does not guarantee that much change will take place...

...The Social Security fiasco follows a historical syndrome-Republicans seeking to alleviate national problems through pain and suffering, only to end up wounding themselves to the benefit of Democrats," they wrote after the White House retreated sheepishly from its Social Security proposal...

...The journalistic pack credited Reagan's skill as a television communicator and lobbyist...

...That Reagan himself since the election has remained faithful to his political movement is not questioned by his own followers," they wrote after the inauguration...

...all of whom scored considerably higher in the rating of columnists...

...A week after Reagan took office, they praised Stockman for rejecting the "conservative orthodoxy' ' and opposing ' '.broad cutbacks in Social Security benefits...

...The perception in the press of Reagan as "disengaged" from poli-cymaking and a creature of his staff in reaching decisions has dogged him for years...

...His wounding in an assassination attempt crystallized Reagan's indispensable role in reversing years of expanding government, soaring taxes, rising inflation, and a sluggish economy...

...Almost alone, they gleaned the fundamental characteristic of Ronald Reagan: that he is a man of deep and abiding ideological conviction...

...It was all politics, and nothing about the popularity of deep, permanent tax cuts slipped in...

...Only Jack Anderson fared worse, and Tom Wicker and Garry Wills were among those who ranked higher...

...Hedrick Smith of the New York Times wrote that the administration's plan to "hit the ground running" was encountering obstacles...

...All the same, Evans and Novak will lose face if Reagan continues to ignore their pleas...

...Newsweek went so far as to label Reagan a "disengaged President" on the same page that it called him an "activist President...

...A recent survey of congress-men and editorial page editors rated Evans and Novak sixteenth in a field of 17 columnists...

...And what Evans and Novak had predicted occurred: a firestorm of public protest fueled by Democrats...

...The Post's Martin Schram added that Reagan "blended basic skills of mass communicating and one-on-one politicking and raised both to a state of high presidential art.'' Only Evans and Novak went to the substance of the tax issue...

...Quickly, the journalistic forces joined in the conclusion that the tax cut passed because Reagan is such a convincing television pitchman and genial armchair lobbyist...

...On the contrary, I wrote, Reagan is "circumscribed" and his "ascendancy is unlikely to spawn the burst of executive activity . . . that followed Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration...

...A "Hance-Conable" bill was in the works that would unite Republicans and Democratic boll weevils on a 25 percent tax cut whose effective date would be a little later than the July 1 pegged by Reagan...

...Shortly after the election, they wrote that Reagan, not "shackled" by a hairline victory, "faces unlimited possibilities with no need to embrace names and policies of a past more associated with failure than success.'' Most other journalists doubted this, downplaying the idea of a compelling Reagan mandate...

...This rhetorical adjustment appears to reinforce an impression created by the new president's Cabinet and first sub-Cabinet appointments-an impression of conventional instincts at work.'' Wisely, Evans and Novak were scornful of this spate of reporting about the taming of Reagan...

...Initially, they wrote glowingly of liberal Republicans who were "pragmatic problem solvers," but they became disillusioned with this rootless breed during the Vietnam war and Nixon presidency...

...As the transition wore on, there developed among the media a consensus that Reagan would do little of a radical nature...

...The supply-siders want Reagan to act quickly in setting a deadline for restoring the gold standard...

...Reagan knew how to "focus his personal charm upon the lowly riflemen of politics"-congressmen-said Lou Cannon of the Washington Post...

...Democratic defectors to the...

...What makes Evans and Novak unique is the blend of reporting, analysis, and advocacy that they inject into their column...

...While Reagan indeed resembles Eisenhower in wholesale delegation of duties, he alone has set the ideological tone of his administration in a way the old general never did...

...A late summer column by Evans and Novak on Congressman Kemp, the new round of budget cuts, and the gold standard exemplified their approach...

...Indeed, Evans and Novak expressed alarm over the appointments bestowed on non-conservatives...

...Far from being the irrelevancy of his caricatures, Reagan is the vital spark that moves his administration...

...Yet in the teeth of this negative recognition, Evans and Novak have been producing the most discerning and prescient-and often best reported-commentary on the Reagan administration of any columnists or reporters in Washington, or anywhere else in the country for that matter...

...Well in advance of other reporters, they determined how Reagan would shave his tax cut, whittling five percent off the first year...

...While others dwelled on Reagan's inattention to detail and willingness to delegate authority, they emphasized the dramatic impact of his ideology on the course of his presidency...

...There is no alternative to Reagan himself to ensure that his goals are not diluted into the fuzzy pragmatism of the previous 16 years of postwar Republican administrations...

...Sure wish I hadn't written that...

...Nobody could guess what would happen to this administration's motive force during protracted convalescence for its chief...

...A few days later, Kemp decided to go along with the new cuts, though he argued they wouldn't invigorate the economy...

...While everybody there mourns political fallout, it may not be noticed that the latest exhibition of Republican masochism irachrro effect whatever on the bond traders it was intended to impress so profoundly.'' Nor will a new round of budget cuts galvanize financial markets and drive down interest rates, Evans and Novak said...

...Last spring, the expectation in the press was that Reagan would compromise with congressional Democratic leaders like Dan Rostenkowski on a tax bill...

...As late as last August, Steven Weisman of the New York Times characterized Reagan as a president who concentrates on "the big picture," but made only a fleeting reference to Reagan's "deep determination about general principles" in explaining why...

...But they never doubted ..Reagan's "radical plans for transforming national policy" or the prospects for dramatic change...

...They are chiefly political writers, but so are Jack Germond and Jules Witcover...

...Rather, it is political opponents and news commentators from the first hour of his election victory who have perceived that Reagan was about to abandon his ideology now that power beckoned and was embracing 'pragmatism.' It is mostly wishful thinking...

...Politically, Stockman is seeking to protect the Republican Party from its incorrigible desire to throw widows and orphans to the wolves and thereby embellish a villainous reputation that has helped lose elections for a half-century...

...He is "a dedicated and serious politician who knows how to grasp the levers of power in the age of television...

...They wrote: The assassination attempt that afternoon left those who share Reagan's dream cold with fear at the futility of going on without Reagan...

...That was a rare mistake for Evans and Novak in writing about Reagan...

...V indicated on the tax cut, Evans and Novak also proved to be uncanny in their warnings about Social Security reductions...

...One senior official refers derisively to Evans and Novak as "the press spokesmen for Jack Kemp and supply-side economics...

...Reagan's "video virtuosity" spurred the tax victory, but at bottom it reflected "genuine popularity for deep, continuing tax reduction...

...But even if Bush, with vastly more governmental experience than Reagan, fully agreed with Reagan's revolutionary goals, he could not match Reagan's ideological commitment...

...On inauguration day, one of the most astute Reagan watchers, Lou Cannon of the Washington Post, wrote that it was Reagan's "agreeable nature" that "more than anything . . . commends him to his fellow Americans...

...Kilpatrick, Will, and Buckley don't do much legwQrk, after all...

...This ideological component in Reagan's makeup-namely, that he believes all the conservative ideas he had been espousing for 20 years and intends to implement them-was lost on most reporters and columnists well into the Reagan presidency...

...Last week, with congressional Republicans acting as chaperons, they began edging toward one another in a series of private meetings . . . that laid the groundwork for a possible compromise tax bill...

...Of course, exactly such a bill emerged and passed, despite the fears of White House officials that it was doomed...

...And Germond and Witcover don't overtly advocate policies and promote political favorites...

...Wishful or not, it persisted, especially in regard to the tax cut...

...But if, as the supply-siders insist, Reagan soon announces his interest in returning to the gold standard, Evans and Novak stand to be vindicated again.nd to be vindicated again...

...True, Reagan didn't buy much of their advice on appointments, notably in the case of New York businessman Lewis Lehrman...

...SPEAKING FOR SUPPLY by Fred Barnes It is fortunate that Rowland Evans and Robert Novak do not require regular doses of public praise from the political community, that unofficial body of reporters, columnists, elected and appointed officials, executive assistants, publicists, and consultants which shapes the conventional wisdom in American politics...

...But at precisely the same time, Evans and Novak said that "unless Reagan amazes everybody by surrendering, he will again battle House Democratic leaders on the floor, with the odds heavily in favor of the President.'' A month earlier, in fact, they had predicted "a Republican triumph on the tax cut...

...Robert G. Kaiser of the Washington Post said the "movement from campaign flourishes to more conventional utterances is well under way and shows every sign of continuing...

...At any rate, gold is the ultimate issue dividing supply-siders and orthodox conservatives...

...The new office of management and budget director is saying that there are methods less painful, both for Republicans and the old, to cut the budget.'' Stockman found some of them, but not enough...