The official investigation of the United Nations oil-for-food program has determined what everyone already knew: The $64 billion humanitarian program was corrupt. The report, which won’t be released until Wednesday but has been partially obtained by the Associated Press, notes that the program did help some Iraqis get needed health care, but that these achievements were overshadowed by “endemic corruption.” Though there reportedly is no smoking gun linking U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan directly to the corruption, the investigation does partly blame Annan for the scandal, as well as France and Russia, which profited from the oil contracts. Again, tell us something we didn’t already know.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
In a surprising Tuesday editorial that calls for President Bush to assert more leadership — because the “aftermath of Katrina poses a threat to his entire second term” — The Wall Street Journal editorial board characterizes Social Security reform as “impossible in the near term” but urges Congress to push for more oil drilling and permanent tax cuts. The tenacity the president has shown in arguing for his still-vague Social Security reinvention makes it hard to imagine him relenting now. But don’t count out his capacity to somehow link its urgency to Katrina.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Maybe making the cover of Time magazine last month not only went to Kanye West’s head but also addled his brain. How else to explain the rapper’s ridiculous assertion on an NBC benefit special Friday night that "George Bush doesn’t care about black people." Bush has had his differences with the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus and other African-American constituencies, but as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice retorted, "I don’t believe for a minute anybody allowed people to suffer because they are African-Americans." There are legitimate questions to be asked about why so many people didn’t evacuate New Orleans and what local, state and federal officials could have done to better help them before and after the flood. But what united those most affected was poverty. Suggestions to the contrary are the work of provocateurs more interested in blaming than helping.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
President Bush’s swift decision to upgrade Judge John Roberts’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court from that an associate justice to the chief justice was politically expedient. For all the left wing’s attempts to tar Roberts in recent weeks, he still looks like a bulletproof candidate — with the conservative pedigree to cut it with the right and the weighty resume to satisfy the middle and earn the American Bar Association’s highest review. So his confirmation seems assured, and the real fight likely has been deferred to the bench’s second opening. And as the president said Monday, "It is in the interest of the court and the country to have a chief justice on the bench on the first full day of the fall term." (It also would keep liberal Justice John Paul Stevens from filling the chief’s seat, even temporarily.)
In the rush to confirm Roberts, though, neither the Senate nor the public should neglect the long-lasting implications of this new development. Here’s one: With Roberts a tender 50, this means he could be in charge of the court for two to three decades. Is he ready? And what about those Americans who are more than ready to see someone other than a white male lead the nation’s highest court?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester Crawford is fooling no one with the latest delay in allowing Plan B, the "morning-after" pill, to be sold over the counter, though he says it wants more study and public input. This is White House stalling that has all to do with abortion politics and nothing to do with women’s health or science. As assistant commissioner Susan Wood said in quitting over the delay last week, I can "no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
