Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos “turned in shoddy, despicable performances” hosting last night’s Democratic debate, wrote Washington Post media critic Tom Shales. “For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.”
President Bush announced a new approach on climate change Wednesday, but as our editorial today argues, it’s too little, too late.
Bush would set a national goal of halting the growth of greenhouse gases by 2025. And he proposed that carbon dioxide from the power-plant sector should peak in 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter.
But merely slowing the overall growth of carbon emissions isn’t enough, scientists say – they must be substantially reduced if we’re to avoid a potentially catastrophic increase in global temperatures. And glaringly absent from Bush’s speech were any specific means or plans for reaching his goals.
Meanwhile, all three remaining presidential candidates agree that the United States must launch a major new initiative to combat climate change. All of them advocate some kind of aggressive, mandatory carbon cap-and-trade system, under which power plants and other carbon polluters would face limits on allowable emissions and be able to buy and trade “credits.”
Good news for those eager to see Kansas finally put its 1994 death penalty law to work: The U.S. Supreme Court, on a 7-2 vote, has upheld Kentucky’s lethal injection method. Opponents had argued that the three-drug protocol could cause an inmate terrible pain if its anesthetic failed. But Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that they did not show “the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment.†Kansas, where lethal injection also is the method of execution, was among the states that filed a friend of the court brief supporting Kentucky. But even though its method of execution has the green light, Kansas should still reconsider whether capital punishment is the best public policy, given its high cost, unequal application and possibility of mistakes.
During a campaign event in Winfield last week, Democratic 4th Congressional District challenger Donald Betts countered the idea that, at 30, he’s too young, touting his youth as an asset during what looks like a change election. “I’m right on time,†said the Wichita state senator. “I’m right on schedule.†(The constitutional age requirement is 25.) He also said he wants universal health care for kids, tax breaks for the working poor and senior citizens, and a homecoming for U.S. troops in Iraq. “We need to end this war as soon as possible,†Betts said. “If those soldiers there, those Iraqis, stand up, we’ll stop fighting.†If he won, Betts would be the youngest Kansan elected to Congress and also its first African-American congressman.
Just when Barack Obama needed a boost among working-class voters bitter over his “bitter†statement, he picked up the endorsement of none other than the working class’s troubadour in chief. Obama “has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next president. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years,†Bruce Springsteen wrote on his Web site.
Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos “turned in shoddy, despicable performances” hosting last night’s Democratic debate, wrote Washington Post media critic Tom Shales. “For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.”
