President Bush talks about the war on terrorism nearly every time he talks these days, but rarely with the specificity and force he used in Thursday’s speech at the National Endowment for Democracy. It was important to learn that 10 al-Qaida plots have been thwarted since Sept. 11, 2001, including three inside the United States. To his credit, he also made it clear that this is a world war with a clear enemy that is Islamic in name only: “This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent political vision — the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.” Of course, identifying the foe is not the same as vanquishing him.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Good piece in Wall Street Journal by Randy E. Barnett on the real dangers of cronyism. Here’s a quote:
“Cronyism is bad not only because it leads to less qualified judges, but also because we want a judiciary with independence from the executive branch. A longtime friend of the president who has served as his close personal and political adviser and confidante, no matter how fine a lawyer, can hardly be expected to be sufficiently independent — especially during the remaining term of her former boss.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Conservative commentator George Will wrote this week that the U.S. Senate should feel no obligation to confirm Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court — not because of abortion politics but because of qualifications. “If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers’ name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists,” he wrote.
Will added: “Constitutional reasoning is a talent — a skill acquired, as intellectual skills are, by years of practice sustained by intense interest. It is not usually acquired in the normal course of even a fine lawyer’s career. The burden is on Miers to demonstrate such talents, and on senators to compel such a demonstration or reject the nomination.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
President Bush’s decisions to send John Bolton to the United Nations and Paul Wolfowitz to the World Bank were kind of like handing the orchestra’s baton to the music critic. Those and Bush’s selection of his personal attorney for the Supreme Court also make you wonder what’s coming soon to the Federal Reserve, when chairman Alan Greenspan retires. Is Bush’s personal accountant queued up and ready to go? Just kidding — I hope.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The city of Lawrence’s Traffic Safety Commission is considering a ban on cell phone use while driving. On one hand, the law makes sense. Studies have shown that talking on the phone while driving is distracting. But the law would be tough to enforce, and what about other distracting behaviors? Should the city also ban fiddling with the radio and eating while driving?
Posted by Melissa Cooley
As I noted in an earlier blog, Bob Corkins, who was picked Tuesday to be the new state education commissioner, has no education experience, no education training and no significant managerial experience, having most recently run two tiny conservative think tanks that basically consisted of him and a computer. So how on Earth is he qualified to oversee K-12 education for the entire state? Apparently, the State Board of Education doesn’t even know. Here’s a revealing exchange with chairman Steve Abrams, reported in the Lawrence-Journal World: “Asked to name an achievement by Corkins, Abrams said Corkins had been able to accomplish what his think tank boards asked him to do. Such as? ‘You probably ought to talk with his employers,’ Abrams said.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Lotteries are for people who failed math in school, the old joke goes. Well, unfortunately, that state of Kansas won’t be able to take advantage of dumb Oklahomans much longer. The Oklahoma lottery starts selling tickets next week. And that could add up to a significant loss in revenue — an estimated $10 million to $15 million a year — from Oklahomans who now drive to Kansas to play our lottery.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
