President Bush, in his speech at Kansas State University this week, defended his possibly illegal domestic wiretaps by arguing that the phone calls were made from “reasonably suspected” al-Qaida suspects to people in the United States. “If they’re making a phone call into the United States,” he said, “it seems to me we’d want to know why.”
It’s a misleading argument. No one is arguing that such conversations shouldn’t be monitored — of course they should. The concern is why Bush feels the need to bypass the required judicial review that is meant to confirm the “reasonableness” of such surveillance.
If the evidence against a suspect is so compelling, why does the Bush team need to avoid oversight?
The president still hasn’t provided a satisfactory answer to that question.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
It’s disturbing to hear that more than half of American college graduates are not able to handle complex, real-life literacy tasks, such as being able to follow the argument of a newspaper editorial or compare competing credit card offers, according to a new study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. And it’s no consolation that adults in general showed an even more glaring lack of math and reading literacy skills.
The literacy deficit is not only dangerous to a democracy, which depends on voters’ ability to decipher complex policy issues and debates, but it’s also bad news for efforts to create a highly educated work force for the 21st century information economy.
The study found markedly higher skills in students who had taken classes that emphasized critical thinking skills and applying theory to real-world problems. State education leaders need to ensure students are getting such course work.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
There was only a mild clash of the titanic editorial boards in recent days over Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court.
For The New York Times’ editorial board, which headlined its Monday editorial “Judge Alito’s Radical Views,” it came down to what he isn’t: another “cautious, centrist” Sandra Day O’Connor. It advised voting “no.”
On Jan. 15, The Washington Post editorial board gave Alito less of an endorsement than a shrug: “He would not have been our pick for the high court. Yet Judge Alito should be confirmed, both because of his positive qualities as an appellate judge and because of the dangerous precedent his rejection would set.”
Ditto a Los Angeles Times editorial that day, which declared that “there are no legitimate grounds to entertain a filibuster of this nominee, or to be overly shocked that he is the sort of justice Bush would select.”
Not a lot of enthusiasm out there — or well-founded opposition.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
As Bush promotes the spread of freedom and liberty throughout the Middle East, his continued support of Russia — which is being transformed by Vladimir Putin into an authoritarian state — remains a contradiction.
Fred Hiatt writes of Putin in a column for The Washington Post: “This is the man whom Bush will visit in July when Putin hosts a Group of Eight meeting in St. Petersburg. There will be fine photo opportunities in repainted czarist palaces, and the message Putin wants to send his subjects will be clear: I am a czar, and the leaders of the world’s democracies do not care; they accept me. The question for Bush is whether he is happy to help Putin send that message.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
It was interesting that President Bush got as much media notice for stumbling over the “Brokeback Mountain” question at Kansas State University as for his fervent defense of his decisions on spying and war. The New York Daily News’ headline: “You’d enjoy ‘Brokeback,’ student gaily tells W.” “The Rancher in Chief and a Certain Cowboy Film,” is how The New York Times put it. What Bush said: “I’d be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven’t seen the movie,” trying to get out of the awkward moment.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Few believe that the Kansas State Board of Education’s evolution follies have been good for the state’s image beyond its borders. Yet Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry president and CEO Lew Ebert (in photo) recently ducked a legislator’s question about the economic development implications of the evolution flap, according to the Harris News Service: “We’re probably not going to speak on that topic,” Ebert told Rep. Candy Ruff, D-Leavenworth, during a House committee meeting. What about the jokes and editorial cartoons it generated? Don’t they risk discouraging science-related companies from coming to Kansas? “I don’t know if people around the country pay much attention to that,” he said. He wishes.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
A “do not fax” law might not help much, because junk faxers are hard to find, and it would only apply to unsolicited faxes to home fax machines. And it would cost the state an estimated $156,000 to implement. Sponsor Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, says all the Kansas attorney general’s office would have to do would be to compile the list and then pass it along to a national registry. The Legislature is right to give Sloan’s idea a hard look. That said, lawmakers should always be wary about bills based on the premise that people have some constitutional right not to be bothered. They don’t.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
