`Washington Rules'

GOV. WILLIAM Weld of Massachusetts is being widely chided for being a
kind of Republican Don Quixote riding off to do surely doomed battle
with Sen. Jesse Helms. How can he imagine he can push his nomination as
President Clinton's ambassador to Mexico past the arbitrary and
ironhanded opposition of the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee? Mr. Weld's challenge to Sen. Helms and the
"Washington rules" and his appeal to a wider political forum are taken
as establishing his terminal naivete.

But wait a minute. What the nominee has been saying about the senator,
who is in a position all by himself to cut off the nomination, may be
untraditional and indiscreet, but it happens to be true. It is downright
refreshing to hear him say so. Mr. Helms does use the powers of the
chair to deny nominees and issues he opposes an opportunity to be heard
not simply by his committee but by the Senate as a whole. His resistance
to the nominee does in fact amount to "ideological extortion," as Gov.
Weld has complained. He is denying the governor an opportunity to serve
in the Mexico Embassy because of some different views Mr. Weld holds on
sensitive and arguable social issues. What else is it?

We could have an interesting discussion about motives and purposes:
about President Clinton's in nominating a Republican and in now finding
the right tone of voice in his overall relations with Sen. Helms to
confront him on this issue. And about the nowformer Massachusetts
governor's motives and purposes in accepting the nomination, in
resigning the governorship to campaign for the ambassadorship and in
using these circumstances to promote a brand of Republicanism distant
from Jesse Helms's. It has been a turbulent summer for congressional
Republicans, and it's not even half over.

In fact, the post of ambassador to Mexico is one of the more demanding
in U.S. foreign policy. It takes someone with high political as well as
diplomatic skills. The plain implication of Sen. Helms's refusal to let
his colleagues make their own decision is that he believes they might
find Gov. Weld a good man for the job.

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