If you really want to understand an issue, find a newspaper reporter, sit him or her in a bar and start buying beer. In 30 minutes, she or he will lay the whole thing out for you with astonishing clarity. Now, why they fail to explain things so clearly when they sit down to write their stories is a mystery. I used to be a newspaper reporter and I was a victim of the same disease. Part of my mission here at Soapbox is to try to atone for those sins of years long ago by bringing some clarity to the news. This week’s topic is the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. Ready? Here we go.

On a political level, this whole debate is about the Republicans in the Senate trying to embarrass the president. The U.S. signed the test ban treaty more than two years ago, but the Senate has never ratified it. Among other things, the Republicans don’t want to let Bill Clinton claim the treaty as an accomplishment of his administration. But denying Clinton a victory wasn’t good enough. Trent Lott and company decided to rub the president’s nose in it, so they brought the treaty to the Senate floor without warning, in a sneak attack and figure they can vote it down before the White House has a chance to drum up support for ratification.
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I have a friend who grew up in Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. When he told me that, my eyes took on a far away, dreaming gaze. “Wow,” I said, “that must have been great…” My friend snorted with contempt. He disdains the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Of course, that makes sense. I visited Cooperstown once, for a day, and I thought it was great. Ben spent his entire youth trudging through the streets of a baseball shrine, where everything was baseball worship and baseball Babbitry; his only protection from all the sugary boosterism was cynicism. (Hmmm, there’s that word again…)
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Perhaps the strangest thing I’ve seen on television this year was the clip last week of National Security Advisor Sandy Berger saying that the U.S. is not the world’s policeman and that the situation in East Timor is an Asian problem and would have to be solved by Asians.

Just six months ago, Mr. Berger and the rest of the Clinton administration was arguing that we had to go into Kosovo, because we are the only superpower left, and as such, we are the world’s policeman.
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The September issue of Consumer Reports will be hitting the newsstands any day now and you may want to pick up a copy. It’s worth checking out. It includes a list of foods that contain genetically-modified ingredients. I haven’t seen it yet, but I think this list will run to many pages of fine print. It may be difficult to read. On one hand, Americans are blessed with copious bounty on our supermarket shelves; we seem to have more food choice than any other nation on earth. On the other hand, many of those choices leave us with little choice. Between 60 and 70 percent of all American foods contain at least one genetically-altered ingredient. You can understand why I’m expecting a long list from Consumer Reports.
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