Wednesday, July 10, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
"WHAT AMERICA NEEDS, in short, is a 'No B.S. Agenda'," was among the remarks of former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm when announcing that he is seeking the Reform Party's presidential nomination. This type of rhetoric will come flowing forth from Lamm during the coming weeks and months. He has the ability to start a political riot in an empty warehouse.
It was Lamm who told a group of high school students in Colorado that "(o)ne of eight women under 45 in Las Vegas is a prostitute." That was 12 years ago when Lamm was openly opposing casino gambling in his state. Then Nevada Gov. Richard Bryan unloaded on Lamm and, after several days, the Colorado governor told the SUN, "I don't really mean to insult the good women of Las Vegas."
SUN writer Jamie Hurley wrote the following account of her interview with Lamm:
"Lamm said he made the remarks last week only to impress upon the youngsters the problems that could come with casino gambling.
"The governor said he found the brouhaha over the incident 'unfortunate' and said he didn't believe it had been a 'particularly skillful performance on my part.'
" 'I think that's really an important point to raise in Colorado as our citizens are considering possibly bringing in a form of casino gambling' Lamm said. 'The point I really want to make is there are many social ills, including prostitution, that come caboosing on with casino gambling.' "
Today, Nevada gamblers and gambling are flourishing in some parts of Colorado. In 1988, Lamm even went so far as to write a recommendation for penny-stock king Meyer Blinder, who was then seeking a gaming license in Nevada.
Also back in 1984, following his remarks about Las Vegas women, came Lamm's remarks about terminally ill old people having a "duty to die and get out of the way." This resulted in a firestorm among the elderly across the nation. The press coverage of Lamm's speech, given before a group of Colorado health lawyers, triggered responses that were highly critical of the speaker.
Lamm felt the heat and later blamed newspaper headlines for locking him into a statement he denied making. Strange as it may seem, these same Lamm quotes have surfaced again this past week.
Our research shows that Lamm tried to clear up what he thought was bad reporting. He wrote a column, that we published on our editorial pages. He went back to his notes and recalled his speech as follows:
"The real question gets into, then, high-technology medicine.
"We have a million and a half heart attacks a year. Every year in the United States we have a million and a half heart attacks. Six hundred thousand of them die. How many Barney Clarks can we afford? How many heart transplants can we afford?
"You know, we at least ought to be talking about that. I think we're rapidly approaching the day where medical science can keep people alive in hospitals, hooked up to tubes and things, far beyond when any kind of quality of life is left at all. But yet medical science can keep us alive. ...
"It seems to me that it's at least a question society ought to be talking about. What are the ethical implications.
"A terrific article I've read, one of the philosophers of our time, I think, is a guy named Leon Kass -- has anybody seen his stuff, he's just terrific? In the American Scholar last year, he wrote an article called 'The Case for Morality,' where essentially he said we have a duty to die. It's like if leaves fall off a tree forming the humus for the other plants to grow out. We've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life."
Then Lamm explained how his words were changed by the press: "Sensationalizing the story on its front page, the Denver Post changed 'we' to 'you,' put a period after 'get out of the way' and inserted the reference to the elderly and the terminally ill. The newspaper thereby completely changed the meaning of my remarks. On top of it all, I was paraphrasing somebody else. That attribution was simply not reported.
"I believe we all must face the fact of death. It is both gift and curse. 'We owe God a death,' Shakespeare wrote 400 years ago. But no single class of people -- whether elderly or terminally ill -- has a 'duty to die.' What we have is a duty to intelligently discuss about sensitive issues. The press has an additional duty to report the discussion without sensationalism, without hysteria and with accuracy."
I've known Dick Lamm for more than 20 years and have found him a most entertaining person. He's bright and quick with a reply to any question. About any answer he gives seems to be a good one at the time given. Medell Barnes, a Denver political consultant, told USA Today that Lamm is "about a mile wide and an inch deep." This evaluation of Lamm is as shallow as that critic's remarks. Lamm has an academic zeal that takes him so deep into some problems that he seems to lose touch with the real world he is trying to change.
Dick Lamm won't be the next president of the United States. He may not even be the Reform Party's nominee. He will raise contentious issues and could, at the same time, raise the level of campaigning from its present low level. He will be discussing Medicare and Social Security and not Bob Dole's age or Hillary Rodham Clinton's counseling sessions with Jean Houston.
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