A Misjudgment That Towers Over Bush

Right about now, John Tower must be wondering when they changed the rules. He must be wondering when drinking or chasing women disqualified a person for higher office.

It never disqualified J.F.K. or F.D.R. or Ike. But that was then. And this is now.

It is not the past that has caught up with John Tower. It is the present. Our present-day attitude toward morality and government.

So now John Tower is sitting around his home, his confirmation as secretary of defense delayed, wondering what will become of him.

We do not know if he is watching “Late Night With David Letterman” or “Saturday Night Live.” But if he is, he realizes one thing that has already become of him:

He has become a national laughingstock.

Both as a senator and as a highly paid defense industry consultant, John Tower moved through the hallways of power on Capitol Hill with assurance, even a swagger.

Now, he scurries like a Mafia don rushing from a grand jury room. Last Wednesday night, as he left a private meeting in Sen. Sam Nunn’s office, his getaway had to be arranged.

Nunn is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the one considering Tower’s nomination, and the press was waiting outside on a stakeout.

Just before Tower emerged from Nunn’s office, U.S. Capitol police swung into action. The elevator across the hallway was stopped and the doors held open. Nunn’s office door swung open and a phalanx of police--three in front and two behind--surrounded Tower and moved through the doorway.

Reporters shouted a few questions, but none was answered. In a few seconds, the flying wedge had moved across the hallway and into the elevator. As Tower was whisked away, a television technician shouted: “Pesky wabbit!”

Just in case you don’t get it, this was a reference to Tower’s resemblance to Elmer Fudd. But few Tower jokes need explaining these days.

Last week, David Letterman presented his “Top Ten John Tower Pick-up Lines.” The printable ones were:

--”Down here, beautiful!”

--”Didn’t we meet at Gary Hart’s pool party?”

--”I’ll take a quarter pounder, a large order of fries and your phone number.”

--”I could have your picture on every bomber in the Air Force!”

--”Do you take MasterCard?”

--”Please, please, please, please, oh, please.”

But all this was mild compared to how “Saturday Night Live” handled Tower last weekend. The show has not been funny in years, and Tower was treated not with wit but with savagery. In the opening skit, an actor playing Tower sat at a bar, pleading for more drinks.

The bartender said to him: “I can’t serve anybody after 2 a.m. Especially alcoholics.”

“Give me another drink,” the Tower character said, “and I’ll give you John Tower’s tips for picking up women.”

The bartender poured the drink, which Tower lapped up with his tongue.

“My tip for picking up women?” he then said. “Tell them defense secrets!”

OK, so it’s only television. But consider this: Twice as many people watch television in this country as vote.

And when John Tower is portrayed as a hopeless, womanizing lush who gives away defense secrets, this creates an important impression in the minds of millions of Americans.

And John Tower knows it. He just can’t figure out how it happened. He used to be “The Little Giant.” He used to be somebody. He used to be a contender. The first Republican senator from Texas since Reconstruction, he served in that body for 24 years. For four years, he was chairman of the committee now investigating him. An acknowledged defense expert, he served for 14 months as our strategic arms negotiator in Geneva and as chairman of the panel that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal.

But those are not his most important qualifications for serving in the George Bush Cabinet. This is: Tower has supported Bush’s political career for nearly 30 years.

When few people endorsed Bush for the presidency against Ronald Reagan in 1980, John Tower did. And in 1988, Tower spent week after week, month after month, on the road for Bush. “Tower was the one guy during the campaign who was willing to go anywhere at any time we asked him,” a Bush adviser told the New York Times recently.

And George Bush does not forget a friend. Even when that friend has no business being secretary of defense.

In a little under three years, John Tower received more than $750,000 from defense contractors as a private consultant. They paid him money and he gave them “advice” on how to get their weapons sold to the Congress and to the Pentagon.

Now, Tower wants to run the Pentagon. He wants to decide which contractors get all those billions of tax dollars.

The conflict of interest is obvious. Especially to George Bush, who shortly after his inauguration pledged that he did not want even the “appearance” of a conflict of interest in his Administration.

But never let it be said that George Bush was not willing to make an exception for a friend.

John Tower is a laughingstock--but for the wrong reasons. It may not be the booze or the women that we should worry about.

It’s the dollars he took.