Boeing Co.’s new CEO, former 3M Co. boss James McNerney, will have to be saintly in his personal life and masterly on Capitol Hill if the company is to recover from the scandals of the Harry Stonecipher and Phil Condit eras. But McNerney’s real test of leadership will be in the competitive ring with Airbus, which continues to outsell Boeing on passenger jets. Because so many local jobs are riding on McNerney’s performance, Wichita needs him to succeed.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
There is a new book by Michael Gartner titled "Outrage, Passion & Uncommon Sense: How Editorial Writers Have Taken on the Great American Issues of the Past 150 Years." It includes reprints of newspaper editorials, including a famous one by Richard Aregood published in the Philadelphia Daily News on Nov. 21, 1975, about a notorious murderer. Headlined "Yes, the chair," the editorial likely sums up what many people wish could happen to BTK. Here is the editorial’s first sentence, with my adding a name change: "It’s about time for Dennis Rader to take the Hot Squat." And the editorial’s last sentence: "Fry him."
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Whether Iran’s president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was among the captors during the U.S. embassy hostage crisis 25 years ago makes for a juicy plot line in the rough history of U.S.-Iranian relations. But if he was, so what? Is it possible to think less of someone who heads a charter member state of the axis of evil? And should his involvement be confirmable, can anyone expect him to be held accountable for his actions?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Hope no one complains about the glaringly green metal roof on the new Gander Mountain store at WaterWalk — it’s the most visible feature of the new development from the Kellogg freeway.
Replacing the blue roof was bad enough.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Partisan reactions to the contrary, President Bush’s Fort Bragg address last week included one thing that everybody can agree and act on: "This Fourth of July, I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom by flying the flag, sending letters to our troops in the field or helping the military family down the street."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The July/August issue of The American Enterprise magazine has an interview with Richard Norton Smith, former director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence and current director of the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. Here’s what he said about what sort of a president Bob Dole might have made:
"Dole would have been a congressional president. There wouldn’t have been a lot of state dinners, but he would have spent much time on Capitol Hill jawboning his former colleagues. It would have been a nonideological presidency, and that would have caused problems in his own party. Dole’s philosophy is not much more complex than making things work — and for a majority of Americans, who are essentially pragmatists, that’s not a bad philosophy."
We could use a little more Bob Dole in Washington, D.C., these days.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
