Judging from the Academy Awards, the Bush administration already is in the rearview mirror. The Bush bashing was pretty minimal and tepid Sunday night, on the order of host Jon Stewart’s bit about the commercial failure of movies about Iraq and how “withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience.†Michael Moore even lost — though the documentary that bested his “Sicko†was a war-on-terror-themed “Taxi to the Dark Side.†Nice touch: having some U.S. troops in Iraq act as presenters.
Hillary Clinton complains that Barack Obama is all talk, but it is Obama’s campaign that has been “a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done,†while her campaign has been “more words than action,†New York Times columnist Frank Rich noted. The Obama campaign has outworked the Clinton team in nearly every state. Rich cited Kansas as one of several examples: “In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.â€
Rich added later: “As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself.â€
Ralph Nader is once again mounting an independent presidential bid, vowing to fight “corporate greed, corporate power, corporate control.â€
He won’t matter this time. For one thing, it’s not a good year for third-party candidates, because there’s a surprisingly high level of voter satisfaction with both major party candidates.
Moreover, the premise of Nader’s past runs — the two parties have the same agenda — has been proved demonstrably false. As Barack Obama said in dismissing Nader’s run: “He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about.â€
A front-page article in The Eagle Saturday noted that as Barack Obama comes closer to clinching the Democratic nomination, the buzz is growing about Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his running mate. She’s “the hot name right now,†Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza wrote Friday. Her executive experience and track record as a Democrat who can attract Republican votes would be pluses. As Cillizza noted, “picking Sebelius would add to the historic nature of the Democratic ticket and draw huge amounts of media attention.â€
But Sebelius has no national security experience, which an Obama administration would sorely need. And her Democratic response to the State of the Union address flopped with her party’s base.
Nevertheless, a Sebelius vice presidential candidacy was further endorsed Sunday by fellow guest Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell on CNN’s “Late Edition,†during which Sebelius talked up Obama and talked about the issues so vital in her home state of Ohio, which votes March 4. “I’d like to see Kathleen here as his running mate. The prairie duo,†Rendell said.
Former Bush adviser Karl Rove thinks Barack Obama’s 45-minute Houston speech last week set him up for failure, because he “dropped the pretense of being a candidate of inspiring but undescribed ‘postpartisan’ change†and turned proudly left-wing. “As voters see what his agenda is, his opponents can now far more effectively question his authenticity, credibility, record and fitness to be leader of the free world,†Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Then again, Rove may be calculating that Hillary Clinton would be the easier Democratic nominee to beat.
Associated Press looked at how John McCain earned the nickname “Senator Hothead,†and considered the notion of whether the leader of the free world can afford to have a temper. One of McCain’s past targets, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, referring to McCain’s outbursts as “aggressive expressions of differences,†said McCain apologized immediately and “we’ve moved on down the road.†But in 2000, New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici said, “I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.â€
If elected, of course, McCain won’t be the first president to fly off the handle. Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson all were hotheads at times. Even President Bush has been known to get angry and profane when the going gets tough.
Changes to the Tiahrt amendment were supposed to change things for cities wanting gun-trace data. But Baltimore and New York City are newly sharing their own information about seized illegal guns, and are trying to get other cities to sign on to their database detouring Tiahrt’s measure.
“Cities are fighting crime in isolation. Congress has a treasure trove of data and we are not allowed to see it,†said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has crusaded to overturn the Tiahrt amendment.
Every spring the Legislature has an opportunity to do something about Kansas’ embarrassing lowest-in-the-nation minimum wage of $2.65 an hour. Every spring it does nothing. This spring should be different. “Kansas is better than that,†said state Sen. Roger Reitz, R-Manhattan. “The time has come to make a statement of fairness to all of our work force.â€
Reitz proposes aligning Kansas’ minimum with the federal minimum wage, now $5.85 an hour and to be $7.25 an hour in 2009. True, most lower-wage Kansans fall under federal minimum wage laws, but one state survey suggested there are 17,000 Kansans earning less than the federal minimum.
Judging from the TV commercial touting Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s proposed expansion of “Holcomb station,†coal-fired power plants make sunflowers grow and families grow closer. They also involve wind turbines. “The visuals overwhelmingly show images of a clean, healthy, sunflower-filled Kansas, hoping viewers will actually associate the Holcomb coal-fired power plant with beauty and health rather than what many may normally associate burning coal with, which is dirty air,†observed Washburn University political scientist Bob Beatty.
Sunflower president Earl Watkins said: “We think the public’s entitled to know both sides of the debate.â€
The Feb. 5 Democratic caucuses caused a lot of excitement in the state, a few days before Kansas Republicans gave Mike Huckabee a blowout over John McCain. But when the votes are counted on Election Day, Kansas still is likely to be in the GOP’s column, according to the latest SurveyUSA poll. The poll, conducted last weekend and co-sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12 Wichita, has Kansans favoring John McCain over Hillary Clinton 59 to 35 percent and McCain over Barack Obama 50 to 44 percent.
A casual observer might see the New York Philharmonic’s historic Tuesday concert in North Korea as an apolitical event of cultural diplomacy. “Sometimes the North Koreans don’t like our words; maybe they’ll like our music,†said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.
Music critic Norman Lebrecht objects, noting dictator Kim Jong Il’s appalling human rights record and suggesting the orchestra and music director Lorin Maazel are being used in an Orwellian game. “Music is the loser in this transaction,†he wrote, “a poisoned pawn on a dirty board.â€
Please. If this is a game, the sure winners are Dvorak and Gershwin, whose “New World†Symphony and “An American in Paris,†respectively, are on the program. And recall that Henry Kissinger credited a Philadelphia Orchestra tour to China in 1973 as playing a role in normalization of Sino-U.S. relations.
Hillary Clinton has made her experience and competence key selling points to voters. But the ongoing disarray and incompetence in Clinton’s campaign undermines that argument and raises real doubts about whether she’s ready to lead on day one.
According to the New York Times, some of Clinton’s top donors are disappointed by the lavish spending in her latest campaign finance report — such as $5 million for political consultants in January alone, and $25,000 for rooms at the luxury Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. Even some of her staunchest supporters complain that the loose spending points to “costly errors of judgment†and amounts to “a road map of her political and management failings,†according to the article.
ABC News’ the Note blog ends each day with a snappy quote or two to sum up the previous news cycle. Friday provided a bountiful three:
“You have to laugh to keep from crying.†— Hillary Clinton, on having been a presidential candidate for 398 days
“Fun day. Fun day.†— John McCain, boarding his campaign plane amid stories about his ties to a female lobbyist and snags over campaign finance rules
“Have you vomited yet today?†— President Bush, to an ailing reporter on Air Force One, along for the Africa trip
Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, is right that Kansas needs to get serious about containing the spread of zebra mussels. The invasive species, which can hitch a ride on the outside of boats or in live wells and bilges, already infests Cheney and Perry reservoirs and El Dorado Lake, threatening to clog municipal water pipes.
The city of Wichita, which depends heavily on Cheney as a water source, is looking at a zebra mussel control project that could cost $500,000 to start and $270,000 annually to operate.
Those serious costs to taxpayers explain why the current voluntary cleanup guidelines aren’t tough enough. Journey’s bill would impose fines of up to $6,000 on boaters, fishermen and other recreational water users who don’t follow the rules for cleaning boats.
This is a good step, as long as the fines are backed up with expanded public education and enforcement.
The mostly civil Democratic debate Thursday night produced no knockouts, gaffes or clear winner — and in that respect, Barack Obama probably won, because Hillary Clinton did nothing to stop his momentum.
Except for one lame attack that drew boos (the “change you can Xerox†taunt), Clinton kept to the high road and turned down several opportunities to attack Obama or draw clear contrasts — declining, for instance, to challenge his readiness to be commander in chief.
And as several observers noted, Clinton’s closing remarks carried a valedictory tone, suggesting for the first time a recognition that she might lose this race.
With polls showing a dead heat in Texas and a tightening race in Ohio, and Obama’s ground campaign surging, she might see the writing on the wall.
She seems to have decided that, instead of ending ugly, she will finish the campaign on a high note of graciousness to unify Democrats and preserve her own reputation within the party.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board dismissed as a “nonbombshell†the questions about John McCain’s relationship with a female lobbyist. But it joined the hypocrisy argument in pointing out McCain’s “continued machinations within the election-finance rules that he did so much to create.†An editorial Friday noted how his campaign used its fundraising lists as collateral to borrow $3 million in November, and that it looked into borrowing another $1 million in January by pledging its eligibility for federal matching funds. This last maneuver caused the Federal Election Commission to warn McCain Thursday that he may not be able to withdraw from the presidential public financing system, which could significantly hamper his campaign. The Journal’s editorial observed: “It appears that Mr. McCain has been employing lawyers to game the campaign finance rules he hails as a defense against ‘corruption.’â€
Wal-Mart gets plenty of criticism about employee benefits and driving small retailers out of business. But it deserves credit for taking action on problems that Congress can’t seem to address.
“As the federal government debates how to wean the country from its addiction to oil, Wal-Mart just announced it would require suppliers to make major appliances that use 25 percent less energy within the next three years,†the New York Times recently reported. “While Congress wrings its hands over higher health care costs, Wal-Mart vowed to save companies $100 million this year by processing their prescription drug claims. (It already sells generic versions of prescription drugs for just $4, well below the national average.)†And since it started pushing compact fluorescent lightbulbs two years ago, Wal-Mart has sold 145 million of them, claiming to have saved enough electricity to forestall the need for three coal-fired power plants.
“We live in a time when people are losing confidence in the ability of government to solve problems,†said Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. But Wal-Mart “does not wait for someone else to solve problems.â€
Maybe Wal-Mart should tackle peace in the Middle East.
It’s encouraging that the Kansas Board of Regents is finally raising concerns about university tuition increases, our editorial today argues. In-state tuition and fees have more than doubled since 2002 at K-State and KU and risen 58æpercent at WSU. Debt loads have increased dramatically across the state university system, too, with the average borrower in the 2006 graduating class owing more than $17,000 in student loans.
Affordability is not more important than educational excellence. But the regents must guard against tuition rates that end up denying Kansans’ access to their higher education system.
Kansas isn’t the only place that needs to pass a public smoking ban. So does India — and before it’s too late. A recent study determined that there are 120 million smokers in India, half of them younger than 30, the Washington Post reported. India is expected to have nearly 1 million deaths a year due to smoking starting in 2010. More than half of those deaths would be among the poor, who likely have been easy prey for tobacco company marketing.
The following satirical headlines come from borowitzreport.com:
OBAMA CALLS PLAGIARISM FLAP ‘BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES’; Tells Hillary: ‘Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner’
ROGER CLEMENS NAMED NEW WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON; Bush Impressed By Pitcher’s Performance Before Congress
HILLARY SELLS OWN TEARS ON EBAY; ‘Hail Mary’ for Cash-strapped Campaign
OBAMA WINS COUNTRY MUSIC ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR; Extends Amazing String of Victories
DEMOCRATIC RACE POSES CHALLENGE FOR RACISTS, SEXISTS; Nowhere to Turn, Disgruntled Haters Say
FACEBOOK TO CO-SPONSOR WAR ON TERROR; Popular Networking Site Takes Aim at Jihad
HUCKABEE ASKS JESUS TO STIMULATE ECONOMY; Loaves, Fishes Key to Package
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The New York Times didn’t back up its article questioning whether John McCain had an improper relationship — physical or professional — with a lobbyist eight years ago. McCain and the woman deny that they had an affair or that McCain gave special treatment to companies that the women represented. The Times’ only evidence of a possible affair was some former staffers who said that they were concerned about the amount of time McCain was spending with the woman and that they intervened to protect McCain from himself. McCain says that his staff never talked to him about this and that he and the women were just friends.
The article was in the context of how McCain has built his political image on being a warrior against special interests, yet his dealings haven’t always seemed to match his crusading rhetoric — the same argument that President Bush made when he campaigned against McCain in 2000.
