Ready or not, the first presidential debate of 2008 — and the earliest ever — will happen tonight in South Carolina, where an expected eight Democratic contenders will try to make an impression with 60-second answers in 90 minutes, not counting commercials. As a historian said, it’s not going to beat “Survivor” (actually, it starts an hour earlier). But “it just gives a couple of top people a chance to make a gaffe,” said political scientist Larry Sabato. That will make it precious fodder for what’s already being called the Blog Election.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Turns out that U.S. officials who have been saying that the troop surge is working haven’t been counting all the Iraqis killed by car bombs. Huh? President Bush tried to explain: "If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory." Huh? Who said that zero car bombs was the definition of success? The issue is whether the surge is helping make Iraq safer and more stable, not how people are killed.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform authorized a subpoena of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It wants her to speak on the claims made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger. "I do think that there is a difference between oversight and overreaching," a White House representative responded. Did the Democrats cross that line in subpoenaing Rice for information that has long been discredited?
Posted by Ross Stewart
David Halberstam, the legendary Vietnam War reporter who died this week in an auto accident, was an American hero. He helped bring something new to journalism — a willingness to challenge official military and administration accounts of war — that has served the American people well.
Tuesday’s testimony about the military’s deception on the death of Pat Tillman is a prime example of why journalists must question official sources.
According to the New York Times obituary for Halberstam: “His reporting, along with that of several colleagues, left little doubt that a corrupt South Vietnamese government supported by the United States was no match for Communist guerrillas and their North Vietnamese allies. His dispatches infuriated American military commanders and policy makers in Washington, but they accurately reflected the realities on the ground.”
In short, Halberstam set a standard for journalistic courage that, unfortunately, was lacking in the lead-up to and fawning early coverage of the Iraq war.
“I just never thought it was going to work at all,” Halberstam said of Iraq earlier this year. “I thought that in both Vietnam and Iraq, we were going against history. My view — and I think it was because of Vietnam — was that the forces against us were going to be hostile, that we would not be viewed as liberators. We were going to punch our fist into the largest hornets’ nest in the world.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
If America learned anything from Sept. 11, it’s that law enforcement officials need to share information and connect the dots. In that respect, there are real flaws with the Tiahrt amendment, we argued in this editorial.
The law, sponsored by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, denies public access to gun crime data collected by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Supporters argue it protects the identity of undercover cops and ongoing investigations.
But New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other critics point out the law restricts access to local law enforcement, too, denying them a powerful crime-fighting tool.
Tiahrt himself believes that the ATF has “misinterpreted” the law in withholding aggregate gun crime trace data, research studies and other information from local law enforcement agencies.
That was never the intent of the law, according to Tiahrt spokesman Chuck Knapp.
If so, then it’s time to fix the law.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
If Kansans want a presidential primary in 2008, they had better say so — and fast. Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh notes that the public so far hasn’t had much to say about the Legislature’s refusal to spend $1.6 million on a primary next year. And with the wrap-up session under way, time is short to save the primary. “At some point, you have to decide that elections and democracy are important,” Thornburgh said. True, but this may not be that point, because the presidential selection system is so money-driven and front-loaded as to make Republican Kansas irrelevant.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The good news: The Kansas House should be able to vote after all on divesting the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System from companies that provide funds to or otherwise support the Sudanese government, which is complicit in the slaughter in the Darfur region. The Senate approved the measure unanimously in March, and House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, has promised to bring it up during the wrap-up session. But Neufeld has got to be kidding in saying that the measure is popular among lawmakers “not so much because they care about the Sudanese, but it’s a great political position to take. I’m not sure it’s a good position for KPERS.”
The heartbreaking facts on the ground make it impossible not to care about the Sudanese — or should. And other states have divested from Sudan for the same reason that so many, including Kansas, divested from South Africa during apartheid — divestment works.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
