August 2000

FORT SMITH -- Ruth Lillian O'Bryan Osborne, 89, of Fort Smith died Tuesday, August 1, 2000 at her home after a courageous 10-year battle with cancer. She was born April 27, 1911, in Rogers, Ark. to the late Will and May Kaylor O'Bryan. She was the widow of W.J.B. "Bryan" Osborne. She was co-owner of Osborne Electric Company, a Fort Smith business established and operated by the Osbornes from 1929 until 1968. She was a retired Fort Smith Public Schools cafeteria worker and a member of Haven Heights Baptist Church of Fort Smith.     Graveside services will be held Friday, August 4, at 12 noon at Roselawn Cemetery in Fort Smith under the direction of Edwards Funeral Home with Governor Mike Huckabee officiating.     She was preceded in death by two sisters, Ada Presley and Edna Hatfield. She is survived by one daughter and son-in-law, Carolyn and Van C. Reeder of Fort Smith; one son and daughter-in-law, Jennings and Mitzi Osborne of Little Rock, Ark.; one sister, Eva Cherry of San Antonio, Texas; one brother, J.W. "Bill" O'Bryan of Basehor, Kan.; one brother-in-law, Ancel Hatfield of Fayetteville, Ark.; two grandsons, Dr. Van C. Reeder of Birmingham, Ala., and Bryan J. Reeder of Norman, Okla.; two granddaughters, Lynnette Reeder Black of Minneapolis, Minn. and Allison Brianne "Breezy" Osborne of Little Rock, Ark.; three great-grandsons, Austin Reeder of Birmingham, Ala., Harrison Black and Colton Black of Minneapolis, Minn.; and one great-granddaughter, Lauren Reeder of Birmingham, Ala.     Honorary pallbearers will be her nephews, Bob Presley, Charles Presley, Pat O'Bryan, Mike O'Bryan, Robert Hatfield, Aaron O'Bryan and David O'Bryan.     The family will visit with friends at Edwards Funeral Home from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, August 4, 2000. Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society, P.O. Box 2605, Fort Smith, Ark. 72902 or to the charity of your choice.

Defining a catchy GOP phrase What a "compassionate conservative" is GENE LYONS With the Republican National Convention under way in Philadelphia, we put some tough questions to our scrupulously nonpartisan Department of Election Rhetoric and Camouflage Analysis here at Unsolicited Opinions Inc.     After considerable grumbling, our analysts agreed to temporarily shelve their ongoing study of the Chicago Cubs' winning streak long enough to offer some no-nonsense answers about the Bush-Cheney presidential ticket.     Q. What is a "compassionate conservative" anyway?     A. It's an alliterative phrase designed to hypnotize voters into buying a used Republican without kicking the tires. Ever since the Nixon administration, when speech writer William Safire gave us gems like "nattering nabobs of negativism," GOP sloganeers have often resorted to poetic devices to soothe the savage soccer mom. Anyhow, it's the opposite of a "limousine liberal."     Q. Poetry? I thought the GOP was the he-man party.     A. Not all poets are sissies. Think about Garth Brooks.     Q. Hey, I seen the man cry on national TV and sing a bunch of tearjerkers about tolerance and such. Cowboy hat or no cowboy hat, the man's a damn Democrat. You still ain't told me what a "compassionate conservative" is.     A. OK, here's an example. Let's say somebody at your church whips out a .44 Magnum and smokes the preacher for sermonizing about John 3:16 instead of the Book of Revelation, as happened up in North Arkansas a while back. And let's say the preacher's the kind of "vicar of vacillation" Safire (and Spiro Agnew) warned us about. Let's say he sets up a metal detector in the vestibule, puts on a SWAT-team Kevlar vest like those jackbooted government thugs who grabbed up little Eli‡n and tries to interfere with your constitutional right to keep and bear arms. A "compassionate conservative" like Gov. George W. Bush or Dick Cheney would let you hide a plastic pistol loaded with armor-piercing "cop killer" rounds under your shirt and slip into a front pew secure in the knowledge that, if the need arose, you could deal a little "hellfire" of your own.     Q. You made that up.     A. Well, it's a hypothetical. But Bush did sign a Texas law making it legal to pack heat in church. And Cheney voted against the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 banning plastic guns for terrorists. Even the National Rifle Association backed that one. Three years before that, Cheney voted against regulating the manufacture, importation and sale of armor-piercing ammo.     Q. Didn't Cheney say he might vote differently today?     A. Well sure, and Bill Clinton might say he'd tell Monica Lewinsky to take a hike if he had it to do all over again. As for Cheney's reservations, exactly four congressmen agreed with him on the plastic handguns, 21 on "cop killer" ammo. And speaking of cops, Cheney also voted against giving $50,000 benefits to the survivors of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty. He did that twice, in 1982 and again in 1983.     Q. There's got to be more to "compassionate conservatism" than that.     A. You bet. Say your wife, daughter or mother got raped by a motorcycle gang and ended up pregnant. According to the GOP, she'd have to have the kid. Even if her drunken uncle or no-good brother was in on it. They'd allow no abortions even in cases of rape and incest. But Bush and Cheney would feel really bad for her, you just know they would. As long as she didn't try to enroll the little bastard in Headstart, because Cheney voted against that, too.     Q. Enough hypotheticals. Didn't the Washington pundits say Cheney's a great choice?     A. They did. To use Sally Quinn's immortal phrase, all the same "Establishment Washingtonians" who told us what a judicious, sensible moderate Ken Starr was now tell us Cheney's a swell fellow. Evidently, he's never actually bitten anybody at a cocktail party.     Q. But the talking heads on CNN said Bush's choice of Cheney moves the GOP away from the confrontational politics of Newt Gingrich. How about them apples?     A. Well, Newt did take a chunk out of the odd pundit now and again. But if you're talking ideology, even Gingrich says Cheney's further to the right than he is. For example, Newt voted for every bill we've mentioned so far. Cheney also opposed establishing the Department of Education. He was one of 21 congressmen who voted against financial aid for needy college students; one of eight to oppose the National Health Service Corps and the Federal Immunization Program. His environmental record makes Gingrich look like the Jolly Green Giant. Cheney fought the Superfund for cleaning toxic waste cites; he was one of eight who resisted the Clean Water Act; opposed renewing the Endangered Species Act; one of nine who didn't want to fund R&D for the Environmental Protection Agency. Gingrich backed all of those, too.     Q. So is there anything they agreed about?     A. Oh lots. They agreed to oppose a resolution urging the South African government to free Nelson Mandela, the George Washington of Africa. Cheney explained the other day that he considered the African National Congress a terrorist organization at the time. Sensible people realized that the real terrorist organization was the South African apartheid regime.     Q. So how did Bush react to Democratic criticism of his vice-presidential selection?     A. He said it was dirty politics to bring up Cheney's record. "What do you expect?" Bush asked reporters at an Austin press conference. "I'm running against people who all they do is spend time tearing people down. And they're going to give it their level best trying to tear Dick Cheney down, but they're not going to be able to do so." According to The New York Times, he added that "Secretary Cheney brought people together and helped to win a war, which stands in stark contrast with Vice President Al Gore, who tends to divide people to create war."     Q. Huh?     A. Exactly. As near as we can tell, a "compassionate conservative" is somebody who's fed up with negative campaigning by the no-account, lying SOB he's running against.     Q. Are there any compassionate conservatives in Arkansas?     A. They're as plentiful as ticks. Our current favorite is Gov. Mike Huckabee. Here's a guy who took $23,000 worth of suits from Jennings Osborne last year writing an open letter to President Clinton about how Arkansans are too proud to take a "handout" in the form of health insurance for their children. Huckabee accepts umpty-thousand free, personalized shotgun shells from the Remington Arms Corporation, but appears to think the poor and disabled should be ashamed to accept "charity." Meanwhile, the state denies Medicaid coverage to families with $2,000 in assets, which pretty much makes it impossible to own a reliable vehicle to drive to work.     If he's not careful, Ol' Huckabuck will lose all the credit he deserves for backing the ARKids First program to begin with. Over in Texas, Gov. George W. Bush fought the idea tooth and nail. The oil companies, you see, needed a $45 million tax cut in the worst way.         Gene Lyons is a Little Rock author and recipient of the National Magazine Award. His column appears on Wednesdays.     This article was published on Wednesday, August 2, 2000

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