Pubdate: Wed, 02 Aug 2000
Source: USA Today (US)
Copyright: 2000 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Page: 8A
Contact:  1000 Wilson Blvd., Arlington VA 22229
Fax: (703) 247-3108
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm
Author: Walter Shapiro
Bookmark: MAP's link to shadow convention items:
http://www.mapinc.org/shadow.htm
Note: Shadow Convention websites:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/
http://www.shadowconventions.com/

POWELL GOES BEHIND BARS FOR FREE SPEECH

They are the forgotten Americans, the unpersons at our national
banquet, the hidden underside of this self-congratulatory era. And yet
Colin Powell, in what probably was the most daring speech at this
overly directed convention, devoted almost as much attention to this
invisible group as he lavished on George W. Bush.

Powell's taboo topic Monday night was what he described as ''a growing
population of over 2 million Americans behind bars. Two million
convicts, not consumers. Two million Americans who, while paying for
their crimes, are not paying taxes, are not there for their children
and are not raising families. Most of them are men, and the majority
of those men are minorities.''

When the Democrats burble about their accomplishments in Los Angeles
in two weeks, no speaker will dare brag, ''Thanks to the law-and-order
leadership of President Clinton, America proudly leads the free world
in the number of men condemned to wear orange jumpsuits.'' At the same
time, it is also unlikely that any Democrat will be granted prime-time
television exposure to lament what this plague of incarcerations means
to African-Americans and other minorities.

The usual rules of politics don't apply to Powell. What can match the
symbolism of a black man, who is among the most revered Americans,
praising Bush as someone who ''can help bridge our racial divides''?
Powell is that rare convention speaker who is granted freedom of
speech. The Republicans probably would have permitted him to speak for
15 minutes on herbal medicine if that had been the general's price for
endorsing Bush.

The theme of the moment here in Philadelphia is the dramatic contrast
between this honk-if-you're-tolerant convention and the 1992
for-true-believers-only conclave in Houston. It is unquestionable that
the Republicans, however belatedly, have embraced diversity.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who said at a breakfast with USA TODAY on
Tuesday that he lobbied for ''fewer dark blue suits and red ties'' on
the convention podium, attributed the change in the Republican outlook
to the emergence of the GOP governors as a political force.

Yet later Tuesday morning another Republican governor was being
angrily rebuked by the wife of a prominent Republican for his apostasy
on an issue that has contributed to the 2 million Americans under lock
and key. After New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson repeated his call for the
legalization of marijuana at reformers' alternative Shadow Convention,
anti-drug crusader Betty Sembler, the wife of the party's national
finance director, went up to him and shouted, ''You should be ashamed
of yourself.''

The outburst was startling, since in the Age of Bush II, Republicans
don't shout, they merely murmur softly. But Johnson, a two-term
governor decidedly not running for re-election, has grown used to
controversy since he announced that he favored legalization a year
ago. At the Shadow Convention, the mild-mannered former businessman,
dressed in a white shirt and olive suit, seemed an unlikely figure to
win a standing ovation from an audience of scruffy professors and
19-year-olds with green nail polish. Asked later about Powell's
speech, Johnson said, ''If only he had added one more sentence saying
that the drug war has failed.''

In truth, Powell did say, ''If you want to solve our drug problem, you
won't do it by trying to cut off the supply and arresting street
pushers alone.'' But from there, Powell quickly retreated to safe
ground with a reprise of Nancy Reagan's ''Just Say No'' campaign. The
general only hinted that drug laws and their administration
disproportionally penalize minorities. A recent report by Human Rights
Watch, for example, found that 62% of drug offenders sent to state
prisons in 1996 were African-American.

It would be misleading to exaggerate these public second thoughts
about the Republican Party's longtime law-and-order posture. Bush,
after all, is a candidate whose idea of tolerance certainly does not
extend to prisoners on Death Row. But against the bland backdrop of a
convention so harmonious that it might be called Barney Does
Philadelphia, any dissent from the traditional hard-line GOP
anti-crime posture is startling.

Especially because the Democrats, despite their overwhelming
African-American support, consider challenging the conventional wisdom
on crime and drugs to be an invitation to electoral disaster.
Following Bill Clinton's less-than-bold example, Al Gore will do
virtually anything to avoid being tagged ''soft on crime.'' In May,
Gore, in an effort to outflank Bush on the right, proposed mandatory
drug tests before anyone could be released from a state prison, even
if the full sentence had been served.

Republicans, on the other hand, are largely free of these political
restraints. If there is anyone pushing the boundaries of New
Republicanism, it is Rep. Tom Campbell, the GOP nominee for Dianne
Feinstein's California Senate seat. At a news conference Tuesday
afternoon in Philadelphia, Campbell, who loudly challenges the
premises of the nation's current drug-enforcement strategy while not
endorsing legalization, claimed, ''Most Americans and most
Californians agree that we're losing the war on drugs.''

These are certainly different words to hear from a Republican running
statewide in Ronald Reagan's California. But then the 2 million
Americans behind bars are as much a part of the Clinton legacy as the
drop in the crime rate or even the gravity-defying economy. It took
Colin Powell to remind us that this incarceration statistic should not
be a point of pride but a source of national shame.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake