After the President’s pre-Bitburg stumbling, it seems difficult for someone to top some of his comments (though some journalists’ behavior came close). And yet some people have succeeded.

• As a leading for instance, Hitler’s ally before June 1941: “The Soviet press today called President Reagan’s plans to visit a German military cemetery ‘sacrilege’ and said the United States was prepared to ally itself with ‘past and present Nazis’ to achieve world domination.” (New York Times, April 27, 1985)

• For an off-election year, campaign-advertising whiz Bill Zimmerman surely is busy.

Not only is he putting together the massive media blitz for California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, he’s also planning an advertising campaign to counter thecontras-to keep the United States from funding the anti-government forces in Nicaragua.

“I’m proud of what I am doing about Central America, and I think it’s a mainstream position in the United States,” he said.

(Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1985)

• Here’s the sign of an open-minded man. During a Senate hearing on Nicaraguan government involvement in narcotics manufacturing and trafficking,

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, sparked an angry exchange with the subcommittee’s chairman, Senator Paula Hawkins, Republican of Florida, when he said it “does the public a disservice” to pretend that “Nicaraguans are the only government officials to have ever been implicated in inte­rnational narcotics trafficking schemes.” (New York Times, April 20, 1985)

• Another Southerner declaims against lust. William V. Alexander, Jr., of Arkansas, the Demo­crats’ chief deputy whip in the House of Repre­sentatives, following the departure of Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega to Moscow: “There’s a movement on our side to accommodate the lust members feel to strike out against Communism.” (New York Times, May 5, 1985)

• Senator Howard Metzenbaum responds to a question concerning his criticism of Reagan administration “ideological litmus tests” for federal judges:

Q. So you do not think, for example, that former President Carter sought judges who shared his views?

A. I don’t think so. They were looking for more blacks, Hispanics and women, and they were effective. But that does not necessarily imply getting more liberals than conservatives because there’s no correlation. (New York Times, April 7, 1985)

• An affirmative-action applicant data form for California State Polytechnic University, Pomona:

Ethnicity (Check most appropriate):

— Black (person of African descent) __ Asian (person of Japanese, Chinese

Korean, etc., descent)

— Other Non-white (person of Malayan, Thai or other descent not covered elsewhere)

— Hispanic (person of Spanish descent or Spanish surname other than Mexican American)

— White (person of Indo-European descent)

— Native American (person of Aleut or Eskimo descent, or American Indian or who is known by tribal association)

— Filipino

— Mexican American

• Reporter Robert Gillette praises the achieve­ments of Hungarian tyrant Janos Kadar, who came to power in 1956 by inviting the Soviets to crush the anti-Communist rebellion:
• He has also gone further than most national leaders, East or West, to avoid the Orwellian cult of personality that some of his allies still favor. Not only is Kadar’s picture not displayed on walls and billboards, there are none in government offices. (Lenin’s portrait takes his place in offices.) (Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1985)
• The March 1985 American Political Science Review.
• And some people wonder why so many Californians are upset about State Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird. Consider her concurring opinion in a recent case maintaining that public employees have the right to strike.

The close connection between the right to strike and the prohibition against involuntary servitude derives from the purposes of the 13th [anti-slavery] Amendment.

. . . [I]t is not suggested here that the prohibi­tion on involuntary servitude standing alone necessarily guarantees the right to strike. That provision does, however, provide ample support for the proposition that the right to strike must be counted among those constitutionally protected “liberties” that are essential to human freedom. (May 13, 1985)

• What do Jesse Jackson and Alexander Hamilton have in common? Light may be shed in a sympo­sium to be held October 25 and 26 at Passaic County College, Paterson, New Jersey:

A CALL FOR PAPERS

A Symposium on the Often Suggested Black Racial Roots of Alexander Hamilton (1755?-1804), a native of the West Indian Island of Nevis and first Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

An inquiry into the hitherto largely closed issue of possible pervasive racial miscegenation in the Colonial Americas.

• The Claremont Review breaks into the art world. The David and Alfred Smart Gallery of the University of Chicago will put it on display it its “Art of the Insane” exhibition, which con­sists of “300 works by mental patients hospitalized in Europe at the turn-of-the-century.” According to the announcement of this honor, the Review is “too biased, in its condescendingly flippant manner, to be taken seriously!” And here we thought that only The Claremont Review of Schnooks cared.