How About Some Real Experts?

By Rick Horowitz

Nervous? Of course they're nervous. They've seen all those movies where The Beast is hunted down and cornered, beaten to a pulp and tossed into a cage somewhere, at which point the leader of the hunting party always smiles his smuggest smile and says to no one in particular, "I think we've seen the last of that one."

But they haven't killed The Beast. Big mistake.

This time it's real life, not reel life, and The Beast is named Big Tobacco. After weeks and weeks of the boardroom tango, the lawyers have worked out a settlement: hundreds of billions in Big Tobacco payouts, a basketful of restrictions on tobacco advertising and promotion, new regulations on nicotine, new anti-smoking campaigns aimed at kids -- all of that in exchange for Big Tobacco immunity from certain types of big lawsuits.

Big Tobacco calls it "a bitter pill." But it isn't cyanide.

The good guys get plenty, but they haven't killed The Beast, and they know it. They've watched The Beast wriggle free of other constraints over the years, even turn those constraints to its benefit. Sure the chains are tighter this time -- so what? The only people who think Big Tobacco's lawyers are sharper and slicker than the people they've been negotiating with are Big Tobacco's lawyers and the people they've been negotiating with -- and everyone else.

Which is why, for instance, the President of the United States has been a few decibels short of solid in support of this thing. The prez is withholding final judgment, he says, until his people have checked out the fine print. He's asked Donna Shalala and Bruce Reed to be his chief scrutineers. Shalala is Secretary of Health and Human Services, Reed is the chief White House domestic policy adviser.

Right idea. Wrong folks.

Shalala is already talking about "a rigorous review from every angle." She "will not leave any stone unturned," she says. Good for her. But this one's too big, too complicated, to be left to your basic bureaucrat. Special times call for special talents.

And for this one? The prez needs people who can find the loopholes, who can spot every exploitable jot and tittle and see how people with a certain nasty tilt of mind might take advantage. After all, if there's even a silly millimeter of wiggle room left in that settlement, Big Tobacco's lawyers are going to drive a truck through it. For instance? For instance: The settlement covers the companies that agree to it -- but what if somebody starts a new company?

Or this one: Big Tobacco will have to pay for those anti-smoking ads, but will they also help write the scripts?

"That's right, Timmy -- today's hep teens wouldn't think of lighting up a cigarette."

"Golly, Mr. Goober -- you can count me out!"

Trouble ahead? No doubt about it. So what the prez needs right now is creative people. Creative and devious people. People who know the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law -- and are willing to ignore both of them if they think they can get away with it.

But where, you wonder, can he possibly find people like that?

We're in luck. He already has people like that: his 1996 campaign finance team! These are the very folks who pored over page after page of fundraising regulations last time around and said, "No prob -- we can still do coffees, we can still do temples, we can still do sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom...."

They're exactly the kind of people who should be tackling a puzzle like this one. For that matter, the prez can invite a few Republican fundraisers to join the effort, too. A little bipartisanship never hurts, and truth be told, both sides deserve credit for finding so many imaginative ways around the spending limits that looked so strict themselves once upon a time.

"Soft money," "soft smoke" -- you never know what clever people will come up with when they're properly motivated. But now is the time to find out. If you want to beat The Beast, first you have to think like The Beast. These are the people who can think like The Beast.

Besides, it'll give them something to do while they're waiting for their subpoenas.

 6/24/97