Columnist George Will took John McCain to task for calling the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week on detainee rights “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
“Did McCain’s extravagant condemnation of the court’s habeas ruling result from his reading the 126 pages of opinions and dissents?” Will asked. “More likely, some clever ignoramus convinced him that this decision could make the Supreme Court – meaning, which candidate would select the best judicial nominees – a campaign issue.”
The conservative columnist defended the ruling as beginning to mark “a boundary against government’s otherwise boundless power to detain people indefinitely.”
Who knew that the perks of power in Washington, D.C., included sweet deals on mortgages? The past few days have turned a welcome light on such VIP treatment by Countrywide Financial Corp. for figures including Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; Jim Johnson (Barack Obama’s former running mate vetter); Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; and former Cabinet members Alphonso Jackson (under Bush) and Donna Shalala (Clinton). Conrad, for one, said he didn’t know he was getting a discount and gave $10,500 to charity when his deal became known. But a watchdog group is right to urge the Senate ethics panel to investigate whether such loans cross the line, especially when the lender has business before Congress.
On Father’s Day, Barack Obama gave a tough sermon on fatherhood at Chicago’s Apostolic Church of God, one aimed especially at African American families, which have been hit hard by the effects of absentee dads. Obama’s message: Too many African-American households are missing male parents, who “have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.â€
Obama noted that his father had left when he was 2 years old, but he’d been lucky to have “two wonderful grandparents from Kansas who poured everything they had into helping my mother raise my sister and me — who worked with her to teach us about love and respect and the obligations we have to one another.â€
“Let me tell you something. If I invade IHOP, pancakes are going to be cheaper in my house.†— Chris Rock, on the high cost of gas, despite the Iraq war
The tomato scare and the South Korean mass demonstrations over U.S. beef imports brought to mind, for New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, the case of Arkansas City’s Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, which in 2004 was prohibited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from testing all its cattle for mad cow disease “because other beef producers feared consumer demands that they follow suit. When push comes to shove, it seems,†Krugman wrote, “the imperatives of crony capitalism trump professed faith in free markets.â€
Krugman’s broader point was “that failure to regulate effectively isn’t just bad for consumers, it’s bad for business.â€
What a great example nine current and former Wichita East High School students set in running from Wichita to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur. More than 200,000 civilians in Darfur have died since 2003, and more than 2 million have been displaced, according to the Genocide Intervention Network. In addition, a column by Nicholas Kristof on today’s Opinion pages tells of the how the Sudanese government has turned Darfur into a rape camp.
Obviously, running cross country isn’t an option for most people. But neither should be sitting back and doing nothing while thousands of civilians are raped and murdered.
Columnist George Will took John McCain to task for calling the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week on detainee rights “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
