Editorial Roundup
The Associated PressExcerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
June 25
San Antonio (Texas) Express-News, on readmitting Cuba to the Organization of American States:
The United States has no argument with the people of Cuba. It's the government of Cuba that five decades of American leaders from both parties have opposed. And the reason for that opposition is the Cuban government's treatment of its own citizens — denying them the ability to select their leaders in a democratic process and consistently violating their basic human rights.
If the goal is to succor the people of Cuba, then there's a wide range of policies the United States can promote. Lifting restrictions on travel and the amount of aid Cuban Americans can send to family members, as the Obama administration has proposed, fits neatly with that objective.
Nothing, however, should be done to strengthen or legitimize the dictatorial rule of the Castro regime.
Unfortunately, that's what the Organization of American States — urged on by Venezuela and Nicaragua — seems to be doing by agreeing to readmit Cuba to the Western Hemispheric grouping.
The OAS expelled Cuba in 1962 because of the incompatibility of its ruling ideology with the organization's democratic standards, reaffirmed in the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter.
What has changed in Cuba since 1962? Not much. ...
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/nbn7dy
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June 30
St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, on Bernard Madoff's sentence:
Bernard Madoff got what he deserved. The 71-year-old financial swindler will never see another day as a free man after being sentenced Monday to 150 years in federal prison. While a 25-year sentence would have surely accomplished the same result, meting out the maximum sentence was a symbolic nod to the scope of Madoff's investment fraud and the number of lives he ruined.
In the end, no one stood up for Madoff. No one sent a letter of support to vouch for his character, not even his wife. Madoff is abjectly alone. He exploited his personal relationships to enrich himself and keep his $65 billion Ponzi scheme humming. It is fitting that he will die destitute, the way he left so many of his "friends."
But Madoff's sentencing is not the end of things. Investigators need to unearth the entire web of Madoff's fraud, and prosecutors need to charge those who helped perpetuate it. And the Securities and Exchange Commission needs to learn from its mistakes. The outsized investment swindle that Madoff maintained for 20 years suggests that there may have been others who advanced or concealed the fraud. So far only Madoff's auditor has been criminally charged. ...
Madoff's victims deserve a thorough criminal investigation and a fair distribution of whatever assets remain. But they also deserve an honest appraisal of what went wrong at the SEC. ...
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On the Net:
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1014364.ece
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June 29
The Daily Times, Maryville, Tenn., on Lee Iacocca and the automotive industry:
Lee Iacocca had some interesting comments recently regarding the automotive industry.
For younger readers, Iacocca, now 84, is a slick pitchman who became an American hero in the early 1980s when he used more than $1 million in government loan guarantees to rescue the nearly defunct Chrysler. He achieved what many thought was impossible. He paid back the 10-year loan in three years.
He credited the quick success in repaying the loan to the fact that government intervention was strong motivation to repay the loan early. ...
Of course, Chrysler and GM are in the midst of a brutal recession and the worst auto sales slump in a quarter century. Each is receiving billions in government loans. ...
Now living in Bel Air, Calif., Iacocca is promoting a new limited-edition customized Iacocca Ford Mustang. ...
Concerning Japanese competition, he said Japan has advantages over the Detroit automakers, especially with its home country closing its market to foreign competition.
He was unapologetic for Chrysler selling hundreds of thousands of SUVs led by the Jeep brand, saying the company was merely responding to the market. ...
Private management hasn't been good or the manufacturers would not be in their current predicament. However, we still feel government needs to stay out of management of American industry.
We don't think any business or industry could long survive if they experienced the widespread waste so evident in our federal government in recent decades.
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On the Net:
http://www.thedailytimes.com/article/20090629/OP01/306299980/-1/OP
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June 28
The Santa Fe New Mexican, on the American clean energy and Security Act:
... (T)he House of Representatives narrowly approved the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which promises, among other things, to make solar and other alternative energy a big part of our country's future. ...
Then yesterday came another commitment to solar energy: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar joined Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Las Vegas to announce fast-track plans for solar generating plants in six Western states: New Mexico, claro, along with Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado and Utah. ...
So all this is far from the realm of science fiction; some reputable firms are putting plenty of capital into alternative energy. And in the meantime, wind generators, once scoffed at by the get-a-horse establishment, are busily spinning electricity out on the llanos of New Mexico and, ironically, above the sagebrush of Wyoming not far from where Big Coal is gouging away at the earth. ...
The shift from carbon-burning electricity still could take many years. But if the Senate turns out to be as serious as the House is about clean energy, and at least somewhat resistant to the forces of finite resources, the transition could begin in earnest.
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/myq2o3
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July 1
Philadelphia Inquirer, on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq's cities:
The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq's cities yesterday was the beginning of an end scheduled to be completed by 2012, when all American forces must leave that country.
It's hard to see that happening now, with the situation tenuous. ... But it will have to get a lot worse to alter the timeline for withdrawal. The American public is ready to quit Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants to prove he's his own man before facing an election. ...
Maliki will do whatever it takes to avoid looking as if he needs the "occupiers" to return to the cities. He will work hard to maintain stability, and will likely show little tolerance for dissent. He is also expected to exhibit a growing coziness with Iran, whose tentacles into Iraq grow ever stronger.
The Iraq/Iran relationship must keep President Obama focused on achieving a regional solution to the area's volatility. Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at Obama for criticizing the fraud in Iran's recent presidential elections. But Obama shouldn't give up on someday finding a way to gather the region's nations for a conference.
Meanwhile, Americans will be hoping as much as the Iraqis that U.S. troops won't have to be invited back into the cities to resume full combat operations. ...
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/ma2g3p
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July 1
Los Angeles Times, on transportation spending:
It's remarkable what Congress can do when money is no object, as the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure demonstrated when it put out a blueprint for a reauthorization bill to govern the nation's spending on transportation. It's a cornucopia of goodies that's getting strong reviews from interest groups, mainly because it gives them nearly everything they've been asking for: Environmentalists get a new bureaucracy to encourage green projects, public transit agencies get a big influx of cash, high-speed rail enthusiasts get new trains, and states get billions in additional money to build and improve roads, bridges and highways.
There's just one small detail that has been left out -- so far, the committee hasn't identified a way to pay for any of this. And the price tag is breathtaking: $500 billion over six years, a 53 percent hike over federal transportation spending in the previous six.
As much as we appreciate getting an advance look at House Democrats' thinking on the transportation bill, they seem to be putting the caboose before the locomotive. The blueprint lays out some forward-thinking ways of reinventing the transportation finance system, whose structure was created in 1956 and is badly in need of an overhaul. But it puts off until later the far more important questions about funding, and without those answers, the blueprint amounts to little more than a utopian fantasy. ...
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/lbjf84
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June 29
Daily Freeman, Kingston, N.Y., on DNA testing and the courts:
We are not among those who believe the answer to every injustice is to be found in judicial interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. ...
But it's hard to understand the logic of the Supreme Court, which recently found an Alaskan convict has no constitutional right to DNA testing that might prove his innocence.
In a 5-4 ruling along the usual lines, the majority reasoned, in effect, that justice in 46 out of 50 states is good enough to head off the court's invocation of the due process clause of the Constitution. (The four states that do not provide for consideration of post-conviction DNA testing are Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts and Oklahoma.)
As for the other four states? Presumably, an unjustly imprisoned convict can take comfort in the reign of justice across, well, most of the land, anyway. ...
This is a case study of what President Barack Obama meant when he said he was looking for someone with empathy to replace the retiring Justice David Souter. That presidential criterion has evoked much derision from Obama's opponents, but a little empathy is all that is necessary for a justice to see the "due process" element of this case through to its commonsensical conclusion. ...
Certainly, the power to prove one's innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt with a simple test should rise to the level of a due process right, rather than one subject to legislative whimsy or inattention. ...
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On the Net:
http://www.dailyfreeman.com
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June 26
Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, on South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford:
... South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who "created a fiction" his euphemism for lied about a solitary hike along the Appalachian Trail when he was really in Argentina with his mistress, joins the expanding list of elected officials who betrayed the public trust of their constituents and the private trust of their families. ...
Is it unreasonable to expect perfection from elected officials given that they are no more or less human than every other flawed mortal? Yes.
But when voting for people to represent them in making serious decisions about policy that will impact generations to come, Americans have in mind the characteristics of what constitutes a leader. Trust and respect rank high among them.
But trust and respect are lanes on a two-way thoroughfare. Leaders must trust and respect the people who put them in positions of power and authority, and the best way to demonstrate that is by valuing and not defiling the office to which they've been elected.
Every new revelation of infidelity or other moral misstep by an elected official does damage to more than that individual's career and family. It diminishes the entire body politic in the eyes of the electorate. "See, they all are just a bunch of fill-in-the-blanks," goes the refrain, when in reality "they all" are not.
But the ones who are, with their very public and very precipitous falls from favor, become distractions for those who are trying to conduct the important business of the people.
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On the Net:
http://www.star-telegram.com/225/story/1456837.html
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June 30
The Independent, London, on the ousting of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya:
The ousting of the Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by the country's military at the weekend has been condemned by many members of the international community as an affront to democracy. But despite a natural distaste for any military coup, it is possible that the army might have actually done Honduran democracy a service.
President Zelaya was planning a referendum to give him power to alter the constitution. But the proposed alterations were perilously vague, with opponents accusing Mr. Zelaya of wanting to scrap the four-year presidential term limit. The country's courts and congress had called the vote illegal.
This is an increasingly familiar turn of events in emerging democracies: an elected leader, facing the end of his time in office, decides that the country cannot do without him and resorts to dubious measures to retain power. ...
Honduras underlines that free votes only count if accompanied by a confident parliament, an independent judiciary, an unfettered media and impartial electoral monitors. The true test of a democracy's health is not the holding of elections. It is the possibility of power peaceably changing hands.
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/md5pps
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June 29
Winnipeg (Canada) Free Press, on France and Burqas:
The specter of intolerance has raised its ugly head again in France, a republic obsessively secular to the point of trampling religious freedom. Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that the burqa a word used interchangeably with niqab there was not welcome in his country.
French lawmakers have launched an inquiry to consider if the full-body cloak of Muslim women ought to be banned from public spaces. ...
Liberal democrats across the world might agree with the president and his colleagues that the burqa, a body-length shroud with a small screen for vision, and the niqab, a cap and long veil that is slit open at the eyes, are degrading and confine women to an "ambulatory prison," as the French have said. But women from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, where the garb is common, will argue that they freely choose to wear the veil as legitimate expression of their faith, and that a democratic society ought to permit such choice. ...
All democratic societies wrestle with balancing competing, conflicting rights. Canada issued a clear sign of its preferences last year when a Quebec commission rejected proscribing religious and cultural expression in the form of a burqa ban. Such accommodation subtly forces people to get along. It puts faith in the power of democratic influences to win over the repressive practices of fundamentalists. Such reforms take time, generations even. But promoting the power of ideas is a preferable option to the force of law, which leaves no room for debate where values collide.
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/ko678d
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July 1
The Guardian, Lagos, Nigeria, on Michael Jackson:
Michael Joseph Jackson, cross-genre musical icon, dancer par excellence, multitalented entertainment prodigy and, philanthropist who died in Los Angeles of cardiac arrest, on June 25, was without doubt, the greatest music maker of the past three decades, and one of the best entertainers in history. ...
While he was no activist except, perhaps in a subtle sense of the word, civil rights activist Al Sharpton says that Jackson earned with music for his fellow African-Americans, what Tiger Woods later did with sports and Oprah Winfrey with the television. Indeed, Michael Jackson influenced through his distinctive style and, importantly, the use of musical video as a promotional tool - generations of entertainers in all the continents. He was also an exceptional dancer. Michael Jackson admitted to have learnt in no small measure by imitating as a child, the late and great James Brown. Gerry Hirshey writes that "...he is the best, the brightest practitioner of Pentecostal dance boogie since the Godfather of Soul himself." ...
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/lqxncs
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July 1
Gulf Daily News, Manama, Bahrain, on Wimbledon:
Perhaps, as she strode on to Center Court in a double-breasted white trenchcoat, Serena Williams simply felt a bit chilly.
Perhaps the weather forecast had told her there was a chance of rain.
Or perhaps she was just having a Casablanca moment.
It seems unlikely, though.
It was warm and Williams has always been more Foxy Brown than Casablanca.
No, this particular Nike-sponsored fashion statement, like those more commonly found on the catwalks of Paris and Milan, was entirely impractical (William's 120 mph serve would have ripped those sleeves right off) and wholly, crucially, cynically, all about the money.
Wimbledon has always been part tennis competition, part fashion parade - any Wimbledon fan worth their salt can reel off as many Vogue moments as victories. ...
But when a player walks on wearing a get-up that was "unveiled" in a blaze of publicity, is ticked, laureled or crocodiled all over, and will soon appear in your local "sportswear" store, the magic is lost. ...
The sportswear companies are milking that ten-meter walk from the changing rooms to courtside.
It is understandable: while the dress code on court is strict, the relative freedom outside the white lines provides an irresistible international stage.
But these companies should brace themselves for a backlash: we watch Wimbledon for the tennis. ...
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On the Net:
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid254423
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