Clinton’s Playing In Wrong Ballgame

It’s the final game of the World Series. Bottom of the ninth. The pitcher’s falling behind in the count. The bullpen’s empty. Who ya gonna call, coach?

Congress? The president?

No. Even a Democrat knows there are places where government belongs and places where it doesn’t.

And yet, here comes Bill Clinton, pretending to be the savior of baseball, pretending that if Congress won’t pass a law to save the day, the season will be lost.

Could he be serious? Could this be politics?

Consider: The Republican majority in Congress is engaged in a sweeping reconsideration of federal government’s role. Sixty years of governmental tradition, beginning with the New Deal, are up in the air and may well be changed. The consequences for all of us - and for our political system - are huge. But you wouldn’t know it from watching Clinton and his disoriented Democratic troops. The nation deserves a two-sided debate. It isn’t getting one.

Instead, Clinton is wasting his energy on a contest between the spoiled millionaires who control the nation’s most boring professional sport. The founders of the government Clinton heads would be astounded at its current size and power, but they wouldn’t know whether to weep or laugh at the prospect of the president and Congress stepping in to resolve a baseball strike.

With a straight face, Clinton has asked Congress to create a panel of arbitrators to settle the strike. If Congress won’t and the strike continues, whose fault would it be? Clinton hopes Congress would get the blame. But who was it, sports fans, who handed this Congress a mandate to roll back federal government?

Look. The owners and players could settle this strike tomorrow if they chose. But they prefer their greedy little power games. The players want big salaries; the owners want a big profit margin on their inflated admission prices. Both sides long ago lost any claim to the sympathy of the fans. If they want to continue their standoff, they should be left alone to suffer, as acutely as possible, the financial consequences. Somehow, America will survive.

Only rarely has the federal government forced an end to a private labor dispute. It has not done so in the 3-year-old strike against Caterpillar tractor - a strike in which manual laborers face hardship worse than an interruption in some prima donna’s Porsche payments.

Clinton’s venture into baseball does send a message, all right: He prefers political games to governmental leadership.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board