In reacting to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision, President Bush said he thought “there is a way forward with military tribunals in working with the United States Congress.” How Congress and voters respond will determine a lot, Walter Shapiro argues:
“Significant as this ruling is, decisions like Hamdan do not by themselves instantly transform behavior as if they were a fiat from Mount Sinai. Their broader implications are bound to be tested in the courts and challenged by the administration. If Congress and the voters lack the political will to act on the Hamdan precedent, then Thursday’s decision will probably be remembered as a momentary flicker of judicial independence in the era of a ‘laws only apply to little people’ presidency.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Spirit AeroSystems’ plan to go public is an impressive measure of how well the former Boeing division has done since last year’s traumatic purchase by Canada’s Onex Corp. and optimistic reinvention as a new company. The planned initial public offering also is the latest indicator of the renewed vigor of Wichita’s aviation manufacturing, which seems at last to have emerged from its turn-of-the-century slump. Now, as this major industry supplier continues to grow and serve Wichita’s economy, it will newly serve shareholders.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It’s been difficult to determine how much of the concern about electronic voting machine security is legitimate and how much of it is a left-wing conspiracy theory. But a report released this week by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice argues that the systems aren’t secure, and that one person with access and the technological skill can change an election. The report says that most of the vulnerabilities could be overcome by auditing printed voting records to spot irregularities — but most states don’t require that. Voting machine manufacturers dismissed the report as theoretical, but even some GOP lawmakers have become convinced that attempts to manipulate election results are inevitable. Said Thomas Davis, R-Va.: “It’s not a question of ‘if,’ it’s a question of ‘when.’ “
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., thinks Democrats should reach out to churchgoing Americans, saying that if Democrats “don’t reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons will continue to hold sway.” Obama, who along with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and other Democrats spoke at “progressive evangelical” conference this week, also rightly cautioned that Democrats should not make phony attempts to connect with evangelicals: “Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith: the politician who shows up at a black church around election time and claps — off rhythm — to the gospel choir.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., is famous for his tart tongue. Still, his startling dismissal of the vice president Sunday on CNN’s “Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer” reflected the degree of partisan hostility on Iraq. After a video clip in which Vice President Cheney called the Democrats’ proposal “packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don’t have the stomach for this fight,” Blitzer said, “All right. You want to respond to the vice president, Sen. Biden?”
To which Biden said, “No, I don’t want to respond to him. He’s at 20 percent in the polls. No one listens to him. He has no credibility. It’s ridiculous.” Biden went on to say that Iraqis are going to demand that U.S. troops leave, and wondered, “What’s the political solution here?”
Good question, but can one emerge from such an atmosphere of partisanship?
Meanwhile, Biden also made some news this week when he said that, though he would like to be president, he isn’t hung up on the trappings of the office. “I would rather go home to Delaware and make love to my wife,” he said. Jay Leno later joked that Bill Clinton said the same thing — that he would rather be home making love to Biden’s wife.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
