When Polish Communist leader Mieczyslaw Rakowski pleaded forhelp from Mikhail Gorbachev on the long distance telephone last week,he received no promise of assistance but some no-nonsense advice:When swimming in a swift current, don't swim upstream.
Rakowski, the wily former editor who took over Communist reinslast month, called Gorbachev - not the other way around, as waswidely reported. He made the call at a crucial point in Poland'sgovernmental crisis, just after Solidarity leader Lech Walesa toldhim to "stop rocking the boat" and making "threats" during efforts toform a new government.
Gorbachev's advice ended the immediate threat to theSolidarity-bossed regime headed by Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki.But Rakowski, perhaps the current Communist leader most hated bySolidarity, can be counted on to obstruct sweeping economic reforms. Eradicating Boll Weevils
Rep. Charles Stenholm's picnic on his farm in Stamford, Texas,Sept. 8 will be attended by two prestigious guests intent oneradicating a renewed infestation of the dreaded Boll Weevils: HouseSpeaker Thomas Foley and Majority Leader Richard Gephardt.
"I'm speaker of all the Democrats," Foley told us when asked whyhe would journey all the way to rural Texas for one conservativeDemocratic congressman's picnic. In fact, his and Gephardt'sattendance is regarded as a fence-mending mission to break up anyrenewed coalition between Republicans and right-of-center Boll WeevilDemocrats. Stenholm was a major figure in the coalition that passedRonald Reagan's tax and budget legislation in 1981.
The omission of Southerners from the House Democratic leadershipthis year was followed by a revived Boll Weevil coalition in theHouse Ways and Means Committee, led by Democratic Rep. Ed Jenkins ofGeorgia, in support of capital gains tax cuts. When Foley andGephardt started pressuring Democrats, Jenkins was defended byStenholm - a warning signal to the Democratic leaders. Bush deal
The decision to name one of the most powerful liberal stafferson Capitol Hill to a coveted 15-year term on the Court of VeteransAppeals is a top drawer deal between President Bush and SenateDemocratic Whip Alan Cranston.
The selection of Jonathan Steinberg, a key Cranston aide, issupposed to make life easier for Bush in the Senate. But it disturbsBush's own aides as well as conservatives. Steinberg was a hairshirt for President Reagan, disrupting his proposals and nominees.No veteran, he spent the Vietnam War as a peace activist. Cuomo complaint
Deputy Secretary of Energy W. Henson Moore is near the top ofGov. Mario Cuomo's enemies list after the New Yorker's conferencewith President Bush about the Shoreham nuclear power plant on LongIsland.
Cuomo lit into Moore during the White House meeting, contendinghe did not have his facts straight. But what really irked thegovernor were comments to reporters after the meeting by the formerRepublican congressman from Louisiana. "It is the world upside down,"said Moore, in referring to Cuomo's plans to abandon the plant.
Evans & Novak are nationally syndicated columnists of theChicago Sun-Times.
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