Tilting at Windmills

...Morgan has sold her story to a television producer for a sum that seems to be in excess of $200,000, I'm beginning to suspect that Dr...

...Charles Peters...

...They are all able...

...S ince—although not necessarily because of—the appearance in November of our articles on how the OMB and GAO failed to warn us in time of the HUD, Savings & Loan, and other disasters, reports have come from both agencies showing that they are now on the case...

...He has refused to give the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the client list of Kissinger Associates...

...It is difficult to imagine that he will remain indifferent to their interests, especially when no one will know whether he's helping them or not...

...One used a ladder to climb through the transom at the GAO office and let the other two in the door...

...These clients enabled Eagleburger to earn $916,000 in 1988 alone...

...The irony is that the 17th Amendment was adopted because the Senate had become a millionaires' club...

...I am one of those who found some credibility on both sides of the custody struggle between Dr...

...Liles then withdrew because he was hired by Playtex as a consultant to advise it in the defense of toxic-shock lawsuits...

...The result is that Canada spends about 30 percent less per person on health care than the United States...

...By every measure he was an outstanding success...

...Elizabeth Morgan and her exhusband, Dr...

...The first ambassador that I knew well was Chester Bowles...

...Opponents of drug legalization often cite the fact that alcohol consumption doubled after prohibition...

...The most familiar examples of the administration's policy of appeasement toward the Chinese government are its spineless attitude toward the murderous Khmer Rouge, the secret Scowcroft missions, and Bush's veto of the bill that would have allowed Chinese students, some of whom are on their government's "wanted" list, to stay in the United States after the expiration of their visas...

...Once the episode became known, how did the government punish the guilty parties...

...Until last December he was serving as attorney in two suits in Missouri against Playtex for toxic-shock syndrome caused by its tampons...

...When they were asked to describe a good citizen, only 12 percent of these young people mentioned any kind of political involvement, even voting...

...The great powers of the postCold War world will certainly include Japan, Germany, and China, in addition to the United States and Russia...

...My agreement with Elizabeth Morgan is that no one will be in the film that she doesn't feel comfortable with and not one word will be said that she doesn't agree with...

...I'm grateful to Edwin Yoder for reminding me of the lynching of Clement Haynsworth by the press in 1969...

...Linda Otto, the producer of the planned docudrama, says she will not interview Dr...

...For those of you who are innocent about these matters, some states, in order to encourage their lawyers and doctors not to stop learning after they graduate from law or medical school, require that they participate in continuing education programs...

...Here's why I think such an outrageous improbability will come to pass...

...Above all we should not let ourselves become part of the problem by becoming haters of another tribe...

...Some facts from the Waldman article that I hadn't known and that may surprise you are: Although in 1988 alone there were 1,500 deaths and 140,000 injuries in agricultural work, nearly twice the rate in coal mining, the federal government spent only 30 cents per farmer on safety education compared to $2.44 per miner...

...One reason the Senate did not choose to give itself the generous pay raise that members of the House will get may be that the senators don't need the money anyway...

...Eric Foretich...

...And the Canadian doctors aren't reduced to penury...

...One of the ways future HUD and S&L disasters can be prevented is for the press to monitor the performance of government agencies...

...All this would suggest that a good part of the Monthly's message has not exactly met with popular acclaim...

...The villain in this case is PAC contributions, which incumbents receive in such disproportionately large amounts compared to challengers that the only new members likely to gain entry are those wealthy enough to outspend the incumbents...

...Speaking of the trend against injured plaintiffs, have you heard about J. Michael Liles...

...Although the monetary damages awarded were excessive in some of these cases, they were on the whole a welcome reminder to American industry that it better start producing better and safer products...

...For those of you who worry about where to send your sons and daughters to college in this era of professors who take pride not in teaching but in doing research and writing and consulting, Thomas Sowell has provided a list of good schools where the professors actually teach: Swarthmore, Amherst, Oberlin, Davidson, Franklin & Marshall, and Whitman...

...The lowest paid— family physicians—make an average of $78,000 a year...

...Three customs agents were sent to steal the report...

...Private enterprise will bring socialized medicine to America...

...Customs Service did when they learned that the GAO had prepared but not yet released to the public a report concluding that Customs had been ineffective in its efforts to halt the flow of illegal drugs into the United States...

...There have been so many articles in the past year protesting the "political" ambassadorial appointments by the Bush administration that I am moved to say, "Hey wait a minute, political appointments aren't always bad...

...There is even a Men's Studies Review and a Men's Studies Association...

...They proceeded to take two copies of the report from the office...

...But, despite evidence like this, respectable America persists in thinking that political appointments are automatically bad...

...How do bureaucrats react to criticism...

...Each, despite lack of background as a career employee for the State Department, has extensive experience dealing with foreign affairs...

...We should note, however, that although both OMB and GAO are beginning to understand what they should be doing, neither is making the major internal changes that would enable them to succeed not only in preventing fraud but in determining whether programs are needed or are effective in meeting the problems at which they are directed...

...But now, according to a study by two professors at Cornell Law School that will appear in the UCLA Law Review next month, a "quiet revolution" is taking place in favor of the corporate defendants and against the injured consumer...

...Have you heard about that new Peter Hart survey of 1,000 young people between 15 and 24...

...Add one more to the list: Men's Studies...

...But the most absurd may have occurred last fall when the State Department tried to persuade a private foundation, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, not to present its annual human rights award to the Chinese dissident, Fang Lizhi, arguing that it "would harm U.S...

...During the sixties and seventies, there was a strong trend in the courts in favor of people injured by defective products...

...Second, the movies of the era almost always made drinking seem sophisticated— remember William Powell in The Thin Man series?—or merely comic, as in the case of Jack Norton, the tipsy fellow with the moustache, instead of depicting it as the brutalizing, addictive, career- and familydestructive substance it can be and often is...

...Morgan wants to be a star and that the media attention her jailing attracted was not unwelcome...

...Our goal should be to encourage mutual tolerance and fair play among the world's tribes...

...We should try to be the evenhanded peacemaker in our relations with the rest of the world...

...I can imagine, for example, that a seminar in plea-bargaining would arouse keen interest among attorneys for a party whose leading members have proved so gifted at becoming involved in indictable offenses...

...Bill Moyers had no experience in foreign affairs when he was appointed deputy director of the Peace Corps...

...relations with China...

...Some of the programs are legitimate, but many merely provide cover for vacation travel that therefore becomes taxdeductible...

...The major newsmagazines should also participate in this effort...

...Yet life expectancy in Canada is almost two years longer than here and the infant mortality rate is 24 percent lower...

...OMB's listed 73 "high risk" or problem programs...

...Foretich...

...Playtex paid him $500,000...

...Haynsworth, the liberals discovered, was guilty of a conflict-of-interest...

...That's why I was pleased to see The New York Times on December 4 publish an evaluation of the Food and Drug Administration that revealed a dangerous decline in inspections and enforcement under Ronald Reagan...

...He was not a former foreign service officer but a former advertising executive and governor of Connecticut when he was named ambassador to India by Harry Truman and later by John Kennedy...

...According to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, consumption of distilled spirits is lower now than at any time in the past 30 years...

...Remember the musical comedy, Annie Get Your Gun, which opened on Broadway in the spring of 1946...

...But society made two crucial errors it does not have to repeat now...

...An early warning is the trend against injured plaintiffs in product liability cases...

...When I knew the time for the vote had come, I walked down Connecticut Avenue to the ABC television office, where excited friends told me the news of Haynsworth's defeat...

...Such costs would be reduced dramatically if we adopted the Canadian national health plan...

...Do you realize what Lawrence Eagleburger is getting by with...

...Haynsworth, a respected judge on the Fourth Circuit, had been nominated to fill a Supreme Court vacancy by Richard Nixon...

...There are so many millionaires in the upper chamber that it is fast becoming another House of Lords—only in contrast to England, our lords have real power...

...Among the matters covered by both reports was a stunning failure by the IRS in the collection of back taxes— estimated by the OMB to be $63 billion and by the GAO to exceed $50 billion...

...As the Cold War continues to wind down, what should replace communism as our number one enemy...

...To my subsequent regret, I too shared in the glow of triumph over Nixon...

...One reason for the constant mishaps in the Navy is that according to retired Admiral Gene LaRocque, the Navy has no way of bringing together reports of all accidents aboard ships to identify the dangerous patterns that should be guarded against in the future...

...Neither did the man who appointed him, Sargent Shriver...

...At Ford, for example, to cover the medical costs of both present and retired workers, the company spends an incredible $8,100 per current employee per year...

...Both turned out to be superb...

...One of the wonders of the women's movement of the 1970s and 1980s to those who remember the 1930s and 1940s is how the movement, which in terms of showing how women could do men's work had made such tremendous progress by 1945, suddenly surrendered and became dormant for the next 25 years...

...in London, Julia Chang Bloch in Nepal, and Loret Ruppe in Norway...

...Consider what officials at the U.S...

...For example, the permissible level of toxic lead inside a workplace is 33 times higher than that allowed on the street outside...

...Tribalism is my candidate...

...It lies behind everything from Arab terrorism to Japanese protectionism...

...Guess how terrible it was: He owned stock in a vending machine company that did business with the affiliate of a firm involved in a case in which Haynsworth had acted as judge...

...But now that Dr...

...Yes, you heard me right...

...If you are convinced that legalization of dope means that we will become a nation of slaves to marijuana and crack, consider what has happened with consumption of another addictive substance that is legal...

...The government has a much more cavalier attitude toward the safety of workers than it does toward that of the rest of us...

...There should be reports such as this every week in major newspapers like the Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times...

...Doctors there are chosen by the patient but are paid fees that are determined by the government...

...The fellow who climbed the ladder was demoted to a pay grade $2,000 dollars less than what he had been receiving, and his two accomplices were "reassigned" to other investigative work...

...The cost of health insurance for its employees is killing American business...

...But I do not mean to suggest that these Republican lawyers will not be sincere in their scholarly pursuits during this convention...

...It shows that three out of five are not involved in any form of community service and concludes: "Although they clearly appreciate the democratic freedoms that, in their view, make theirs the 'best country in the world to live in,' they fail to perceive a need to reciprocate by exercising the duties and responsibilities of good citizenship...

...Membership was obtained through bribery of state legislators, who elected senators prior to 1912...

...Sometimes, even experience isn't important...

...Annie, played by Ethel Merman, had proved to men "Anything you can do I can do better" but now she wanted the hero to see her as "the girl that I marry," who will "have to be as soft and pink as a nursery" and "wear satins and laces and smell of cologne...

...The GAO report identified programs where as much as "$100 billion could be lost...

...But, as you will see in Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's article on the need for values in our schools on page 30 of this issue, we plan to go right on trying to get this selfish society back on track...

...The official who ordered the break-in was given a letter of reprimand, later removed from his file...

...After all, the reason this column is called "Tilting at Windmills," is that we believe in sticking by our convictions even if the rest of the world thinks we're demented...

...An example of what they can do is the evaluation of OSHA in Steven Waldman's "Danger on the Job" in the December 11 Newsweek...

...Today I have three acquaintances who are political ambassadors: Henry Catto Jr...

...All of which means that the main subject of this magazine during the past 20 years is going to be even more important in the next 20...

...The letter of invitation to the convention of the Republican National Lawyers Association promises those who attend both "a very special event" and "continuing legal education credits...

...Unfortunately, the nomination came at a time when liberals were spoiling for a chance to give Nixon a bloody nose...

...As to which of the five emerges as the political and economic leader, my guess is that it will be the one that comes the closest to defeating the stultifying bureaucratic forces that exist in each of them and are probably now the worst in Russia, where they are so strong that they constitute the major threat to Gorbachev's survival...

...The day his nomination was rejected by the Senate, there was exultation among Washington liberals...

...Now it's a millionaires' club again...

...First, we permitted advertising that glamorized the consumption of alcohol...

...All those conservatives Ronald Reagan appointed to Federal district and appellate judgeships are beginning to have an impact...