GOP Chairman Lashes at Media and Clintons

HOUSTON — Girding for next week’s renomination of their beleaguered incumbent, Republican leaders lashed out at the Democratic opposition Wednesday with a caustic speech by national Chairman Richard N. Bond and a platform that is taking shape as even more conservative and combative than the one that helped guide President Bush to the White House in 1988.

In an address to the Republican National Committee, Bond blasted Democrats and the media and charged that Democratic nominee Bill Clinton would pack his Cabinet with free-spending liberals, nominate Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to the Supreme Court and take advice “on every move” from his wife, Hillary, who, Bond said, “has likened marriage and the family to slavery.”

Platform-drafters were busy on another front, accepting an amendment from supporters of Patrick J. Buchanan that seemed to endorse building walls along the border with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants. Buchanan advocates such a move; however, a Bush campaign aide denied the provision would have that effect.

But the most bitter controversy of the day seemed to revolve around Hillary Clinton, a lawyer who has long worked on children’s issues and who was chairwoman of the board of the Children’s Defense Fund. Republicans consider her a choice target because her assertive feminism has seemed to grate against nerve endings of middle-class Americans.

In his speech, Bond said: “Now, of course, advising Clinton on every move is that champion of the family, Hillary Clinton, who believes kids should be able to sue their parents rather than helping with the chores as they were asked to do. She has likened marriage and the family to slavery. She has referred to the family as a dependency relationship that deprives people of their rights.”

When asked what Bond based that on, the RNC released a 1973 essay she wrote on the changing status of children under the law. “The basic rationale for depriving people of rights in a dependency relationship is that certain individuals are incapable or undeserving of the right to take care of themselves . . . “ she wrote. “Along with the family, past and present examples of such arrangements include marriage, slavery and the Indian reservation system.”

At various times in history--including ancient Greece, some of the years of the Roman Empire and even 19th-Century England--a wife was considered in the power of her husband, usually incapable of making contracts or governing her financial affairs.

Bill Clinton responded to Bond’s attack with disdain, calling it “pitiful” and “pathetic.”

Republicans “obviously are a little bit in disarray,” he told reporters after a speech in Pittsburgh, Pa. “They are having trouble getting their act together.”

Clinton also defended his wife’s career. “Hillary has worked for more than 20 years to help children get off to a better start in life. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

In the past, Clinton said, “President Bush, before I began to run for President . . . always expressed his personal admiration for Hillary and her outstanding achievements and her commitment to children.”

Platform-drafters, meanwhile, added more muscle to an already tough document that charges the Democrats with “waging a guerrilla war against American values” and practicing “the politics of division, envy and conflict.”

They accepted an amendment offered by Bush’s former challenger for the GOP nomination, Buchanan, to the immigration section. The amendment calls for equipping the Border Patrol “with the tools, technologies and structures necessary to secure the border.”

Buchanan’s sister and campaign manager, Angela (Bay) Buchanan, said “structures” means walls. “They don’t build lighthouses on the border,” she said.

But the Bush campaign’s issues adviser, Jim Cicconi, called that “a lot of hooey.” He contended that the language merely reaffirms current policy.

Another provision urges Bush to use a line-item veto against “special-interest and pork-barrel legislation.” Conservatives contend the President has such authority, although most constitutional scholars disagree.

But much of the GOP attack focused on the so-called values issues involving mores and standards that guide private lives. Underlining the GOP’s disapproval of permissiveness, the platform opposes “any legislation or law that recognizes same sex-marriages.”

On AIDS, the platform pledges “compassion, not fear or ignorance.” But it calls on the states to make it a crime to knowingly transmit the virus.

GOP strategists aim to wrest away the political initiative that the Democrats have held since their convention last month. They also hope to sharpen the distinctions between Republicans and Democrats which they feel have become blurred during Bush’s 42 months in the White House.

Bond pointed the way for Bush’s campaign with a double-barreled assault on the Democrats, whom he accused of harming the economy for partisan advantage, and on the media, whom he charged with bias against the GOP.

Democratic congressional leaders made “a fundamental decision” at the start of the Bush presidency, Bond contended. “Rather than trying to compete with George Bush on foreign affairs, they would simply obstruct the President’s domestic proposals. . . . It’s given a whole new meaning to the words ‘contempt of Congress.’ ”

Bond was equally unsparing in his attack on the press. “We know who the media want to win this election,” he said, “and I don’t think it’s George Bush and the American people.”

As evidence, Bond cited the refusal of the three non-cable networks to give Bush air time for a press conference about the balanced-budget amendment June 4.

He also complained about what he called excessively favorable treatment given Clinton and running mate Al Gore’s two bus tours. He specifically cited a headline in the Washington Post that referred to the two Democrats as “heartthrobs of the Heartland.”

Times staff writer David Lauter contributed to this story.

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