Everybody wants Japan to hurry up and reopen its markets to U.S. beef, because the mad cow-related lockout is costing the U.S. beef industry $1 billion a year. And the leadership on this issue by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and other Kansans in Congress has been impressive. But are billions of dollars in annual tariffs on Japanese products the means to the desired end? If the tariffs legislation in Congress, authored by Roberts and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., is mostly meant as a threat to push Japan to act by the end of the year, OK. And if President Bush can get Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to relent during his Nov. 15-16 trip to Japan, great. But tariffs on Japanese goods would end up punishing Americans, too, by driving up prices and hurting economic growth.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Though President Bush is clearly in a hole, rumors of his political demise are exaggerated. After all, two other recent presidents — Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — faced and overcame major problems and scandals during their second terms, and so could Bush. In fact, Bush advisers are taking clues from the former presidents’ playbooks to help Bush weather this political storm, The Washington Post reported. And Bush even sounded just like Clinton recently when he dismissed the scandal talk as “background noise” and said that “the American people expect me to do my job, and I’m going to.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
I’m sad that we’re at a place in America where torture is considered by some a legitimate tool against “terrorists” or any other of our enemies.
Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has been pressuring Congress to include language in John McCain’s anti-torture provision that would exempt the CIA “if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attacks.”
This at the same time that White House press secretary Scott McClellan declared that the president’s position is “very clear: We do not condone torture, nor would he ever authorize the use of torture.” No, but he will wink and look the other way.
McCain, who was a victim of torture as a Vietnam prisoner of war, is rejecting the changes, saying that they would “basically allow the CIA to engage in torture.”
I’m all for aggressive interrogation techniques against our enemies. But my support stops well short of torture and murder (a new report says that 21 detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan have been murdered by their American captors).
Yes, I know — these are bad guys. This is the “real world.” But in the real world, endorsing torture puts our nation on the moral level of third-rate dictators like Saddam Hussein and opens our soldiers to the kind of cruel and degrading abuse that McCain suffered in Vietnam.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
However special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald concludes his CIA leak probe, it will leave somebody grumbling about these probes’ cost and prosecutors’ lack of accountability, etc. But unlike Ken Starr and most of his predecessors, Fitzgerald at least knows how to squeeze the most out of a buck: The first 15 months of his investigation cost $723,000, according to the Government Accountability Office. Compare that with the more than $3 million that independent counsel David M. Barrett spent during the same period. Didn’t know there still was an independent counsel? There is. Barrett has spent 10 years and $21 million probing former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros — never mind that Cisneros pleaded guilty six years ago to lying to the FBI, paid a $10,000 fine and won a pardon from President Clinton. No wonder members of Congress are trying to yank Barrett’s funding.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Longtime Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison has a strong track record and a high profile, having successfully prosecuted such killers as Richard Grissom and John Robinson. On his resume alone, he should be a competitive candidate for Kansas attorney general. But what about that party switch? It’s hard enough for Democrats who transform themselves into Republicans to win in this red state. But a Republican who restyles himself as a Democrat for a statewide run? In any case, Morrison’s Tuesday announcement promises a lively debate on the substance of Attorney General Phill Kline’s controversial first term. This should be interesting.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Speaking of Attorney General Phill Kline: It’s good that he is trying to get to the bottom of how a videotaped interview with Dennis Rader ended up being aired on “Dateline NBC.” Kline alleged Tuesday that Massachusetts psychologists Robert Mendoza and Tali Walter breached their contract with the state by selling the tape.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Rosa Parks, who died Monday, was tired after working all day and didn’t want to have to give up her bus seat to a white man. “I felt that I had the right to be treated as any other passenger,” she explained later. It was the simplicity of her story that ignited the civil rights movement and that still resonates 50 years later.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
