With his punchy, aggressive style and his penchant for the one-liner, William Bennett may be your idea of the perfect civil servant.
Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois does not share such an assessment.
In fact, on the day the Senate`s rejection of John Tower to be secretary of defense dominated the news, Simon and one other Democrat, Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, quietly availed themselves of the chance to say no to Bennett`s nomination to be George Bush`s ”drug czar.”
In a conversation in his Capitol Hill office last Wednesday, Simon was far from apologetic about his vote. Disliking Bennett might be as out of fashion in Washington as importing AK-47s or Chilean grapes. But Simon figures he understands his bureaucrat.
”I`ve known Bill a long time,” Simon said. ”I knew him when he was down at the humanities center in North Carolina. I went down there a couple of times to give speeches for him.”
Simon recalled that when he served in the House of Representatives, nominees to be chairs of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities came across his subcommittee desk.
”I told my staff that Frank Hodsoll, who was going to the Endowment for the Arts under Ronald Reagan, would just go along with the White House and do anything they want. And I told them that Bennett, who got the humanities post, would fight for his programs,” said Simon.
”Well, it turned out to be just exactly the opposite. Frank Hodsoll fought hard for his programs in the arts, and Bill Bennett was just a patsy.
”Whatever the White House or the OMB (Office of Management and Budget)
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said, that`s what they did” at the National Endowment for Humanities, Simon said.
By Simon`s lights, Bennett`s brassy and high-profile tenure as secretary of education wasn`t much different.
”He was great on getting his name in print,” said Simon. ”And he was great on the television tube. But in terms of getting the job done, he has shown weakness.”
In Bennett`s most recent confirmation hearing, this time before the Judiciary Committee, Simon noted that Bennett, during his tour at the Education Department, had sat by quietly while federal funding for drug education was slashed nearly 50 percent.
”He was very quick to criticize other agencies, other branches of government, with relation to the drug problem,” Simon said. ”He had something to say about how everybody else was doing. But I felt he was a little too concerned with what his superiors thought, too worried about trying to keep them happy.”
Simon noted that former Republican Sen. Robert Stafford of Vermont
”said in public a couple of years after Bill Bennett took the education job that if he`d known what kind of a secretary Bill was going to be, he`d have voted against him when he was chairman of the Education Subcommittee.”
Among the most celebrated moments of Bennett`s stay in the education post was his characterization of Chicago`s public schools as the ”worst in America.”
Simon credited Bennett with drawing a measure of public attention to the crisis in education, but again he was less than enthralled by the secretary`s bumptious style.
Simon is among those who believes there`s more to problem-solving than the artful use of the bully pulpit.
”I did not tangle with Bennett on that issue,” Simon noted. ”I don`t know what the phrase `worst schools in America` means. But there`s no question that urban schools are in bad shape.
”There`s a tendency with Bill Bennett to say the things that are dramatic, things that get headlines, that are often less than accurate. That`s the problem. What does he say after he says Chicago schools are the worst in the country?”
Having watched Bennett in three public incarnations, Simon has a feel for what we can expect from Bennett on the drug-fighting front.
”We`re going to get a lot of homilies about how bad drugs are,” Simon said. ”I`m afraid we`re going to get a lot of words, a lot of press releases- and not much action.”
This being a discussion with Paul Simon, of course, there has to be an upbeat, positive finish. And there is.
The junior senator from Illinois is hoping his vote against Bennett will stimulate him to mend his governmental ways.
”Nothing would make me happier than to be wrong on this one,” Simon insisted. ”If he does well, I`m going to be the first one to say, `Hats off to you, Bill Bennett. I was wrong on this vote.` ”
Until that happens, Simon will be watching the press releases fly.