If a deal on the Wall Street bailout truly is at hand, John McCain’s call to delay Friday’s first presidential debate should be moot. It’s time that McCain and Barack Obama faced off, not just for the 18 percent of undecided voters but for the country. But there has been much speculation about McCain’s motives. David Letterman (in photo with McCain from April) exhaustively chided the candidate on Wednesday’s “Late Show” for putting his campaign on hold to focus on the financial crisis, especially because McCain canceled Letterman but did an interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric. “You’re a fourth term senator from Arizona. You handle what you need to handle. Don’t suspend your campaign. You let your campaign go on, shouldered by your vice presidential nominee,” Letterman said.
Columnist George Will sees a bit of Lewis Carroll in John McCain’s apparently unfounded call for the head of Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, over the financial debacle. Will wrote: “For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are ‘corrupt’ or ‘betray the public’s trust,’ two categories that seem to be exhaustive — there are no other people.” Will frets about McCain as president: “It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. (Barack Obama’s) unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?”
Barack Obama believes that top-down government regulation is strangling innovation inside schools. For him, Washington’s role should focus on setting good learning standards, tracking student progress and helping states recruit a stronger teaching force. Obama wisely proposes attacking structural constraints that keep highly qualified college graduates from pursuing careers as teachers and spurring a mixed market of diverse schools. Obama emphasizes the phrase “responsible charter schools” to underscore the fact that unregulated, fly-by-night charter schools in states like Arizona have failed and closed, leaving children and parents in the lurch. Obama has amplified his pitch to expand preschools that include working with parents to improve early literacy practices. He said that he would rely heavily on churches and other community groups to run new preschools in order to avoid sluggish school bureaucracies. — Bruce Fuller, University of California at Berkeley professor
Barack Obama’s proposals fall short of John McCain’s call for systemic change in the form of school-choice vouchers and greater competition between the public and private sectors for the delivery of education services. Take Obama’s proposal to better use technology in the classroom. Most people would probably say that technology in the classroom improves student learning and achievement. But the evidence is far from clear. Even Obama’s call for added charter-school funding is problematic. Charter schools are supposed to be local efforts free from bureaucratic red tape. More federal money and the ambiguous “accountability” strings that Obama has mentioned in his speeches could undercut charters’ raison d’etre. — Lance T. Izumi, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein suggests two little words have been missing in all the warnings about what will happen if taxpayers don’t give up $700 billion to cover bad debt: “‘We’re sorry.’ As in, ‘We’re sorry that those of us who were supposed to be stewards of the world’s deepest and most trusted capital markets have violated that trust by putting our own interests ahead of those of our customers and the country.’” Pearlstein imagines what it would be like if the “heads of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley were to stand before the cameras in the Capitol rotunda, apologize for letting down their investors and their employees and voluntarily offer to suspend their extravagant compensation schemes until the crisis has passed and new regulations are in place.”
Maybe Troy Davis really did murder Savannah, Ga., police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989, but the U.S. Supreme Court was right Tuesday to stay his execution until after a Monday hearing, stepping in to assure the state of Georgia doesn’t execute an innocent man.
The facts of the case against Davis should give even capital punishment advocates pause: He was convicted on eyewitness testimony alone, and seven of those nine witnesses have recanted. Three witnesses said another man admitted to the crime. The murder weapon was never found.
And is it too much to ask that if states must have death penalties, they not be used in cases where convictions are based entirely on eyewitness testimony?
Maybe Joe Biden needs to spend some more time with the top of his ticket, as Sarah Palin does with John McCain. In recent days, Biden has muddled or contradicted Barack Obama’s positions on several issues, saying that the federal government shouldn’t bail out AIG, that the rich should pay more taxes “to be patriotic,” that the Obama ad making fun of McCain’s computer illiteracy was “terrible” and that he and Obama “are not supporting clean coal” plants in the United States. As Newsweek blogger Andrew Romano wrote, someone from the Obama campaign “should give the guy a good talking to. If he or she can get a word in edgewise, that is.”
“As a general rule, everybody wants to kind of forget about the last couple years when it comes to the A.G. and D.A. offices.” — Christian Morgan, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, in a Topeka Capital-Journal article drawing links between the old Phill Kline-Paul Morrison feud and the current district attorney races in Shawnee, Johnson and Sedgwick counties
Check out Roll Call’s annual list of the “50 richest members of Congress.” Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., tops the list with $230.9 million. Six Democrats and four Republicans make up the top 10. The only Kansas connection is No. 19 Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., whose $16.4 million wealth with husband and former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole includes 119 acres in the state. Let the reader beware, though. Roll Call notes that “it is based on the lawmakers’ financial disclosure forms, which are extraordinarily unreliable sources of information.”
“Everyone agrees that something major must be done. But Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan is demanding extraordinary power for himself — and for his successor — to deploy taxpayers’ money on behalf of a plan that, as far as I can see, doesn’t make sense,” wrote columnist Paul Krugman.
He concluded: “Paulson insists that he wants a ‘clean’ plan. ‘Clean,’ in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached — no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review ‘by any court of law or any administrative agency,’ and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal.”
Barack Obama is still having trouble closing the deal with about a third of Hillary Clinton supporters, even though Clinton supporters say they trust Obama more than John McCain to handle nearly all the top issues. A new poll found that 58 percent of those who backed Clinton during the primaries now support Obama. That’s the same percentage as in June, despite Clinton’s strong endorsement of Obama. As a result, McCain has greater support from his party than Obama, with 87 percent of Republicans backing McCain and 74 percent of Democrats saying they will vote for Obama.
“It seems apropos that Banned Books Week begins next weekend,” wrote columnist Leonard Pitts, reflecting on the reports of how Sarah Palin asked the Wasilla, Alaska, librarian three times about removing controversial books from the shelves. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom “reports that since 1990 it has seen 9,700 ‘challenges’ — a challenge is defined as a formal written request to remove a book from a library because the content offends or is deemed inappropriate,” Pitts wrote. “Chillingly, the office suggests that’s probably an undercount. It estimates that for every challenge reported, four or five are not.
“So Palin has company, to say the least.”
John McCain, in Congress for 26 years to Barack Obama’s four, has the longer record of producing bipartisan alliances on tough issues. He has bucked his party again and again to do just that — on immigration, federal judges and campaign finance, to name three.
Obama has a much thinner record of bucking his own party. With the exception of tough fights for ethics reforms in the Illinois Senate and in Washington — where he angered Democratic colleagues by insisting on the disclosure of lobbyists who bundle campaign donations — Obama has rarely challenged party dogma on the sort of big, contentious issues he’d face as president.
None of this is to say Obama couldn’t turn into a consensus-building, party-challenging president.
Based on their records so far, though, it takes a greater leap of faith to believe that of him than of McCain.
— USA Today editorial
In Illinois, I reached across the aisle to put $100 million in tax cuts into the pockets of hard-working families. And I opposed members of my party to pass the first major ethics reform in 25 years, ending the outrage of politicians pocketing campaign contributions for personal use.
I’ve bridged the partisan divide in the Senate to bring about change. With Sen. Dick Lugar, I fought to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. With Sen. Tom Coburn, I helped end the abuse of no-bid contracts and made government more open by putting every contract, every grant and every dime of federal spending online.
My opponent speaks of bipartisanship. But you cannot claim independence from your party when you vote with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time. You cannot end partisan divisions when you embrace the Karl Rove politics that’s polarized this country for so long. It’s time to reject the cynicism that treats bipartisanship as little more than a slogan.
— Barack Obama’s response in USA Today
In June, three Wichita Police Department officers were suspended with pay for allegedly making racist and sexually graphic comments at a party. Over the summer, the stated reason for the department’s silence about the suspensions was that an investigation was ongoing — leading anyone to expect more information would come once the investigation was complete. When that day finally came Friday, though, a six-sentence statement from Police Chief Norman Williams (in photo) added nothing to the public’s understanding of the incident or the resulting discipline. “This thorough investigation demonstrates the Wichita Police Department’s commitment to integrity and community trust,” the statement concluded. Well, that wasn’t worth the wait — or sufficient to reassure some in the community that the officers involved were held accountable.
It’s troubling how Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin went from welcoming an inquiry into her firing of the state’s public safety commissioner (“Hold me accountable. . . . I don’t have anything to hide,” she said just weeks ago) to stonewalling the probe as partisan. The legislative committee that authorized the inquiry consisted of four Democrats and 10 Republicans, and many Republicans still support the investigation into whether Palin abused her power to try to engineer the firing of her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper. Palin’s nomination as John McCain’s running mate does not give her a pass on the rule of law. The Alaska Legislature needs to enforce the subpoenas requiring her husband and executive aides to testify.
The more we hear about the supposedly populist Palin administration, by the way, the more it sounds like the secretive Bush White House squared.
If Kansas is going to keep its cap on workers’ compensation payments, that cap needs to be reasonable and should be adjusted based on cost of living. A new study released last week noted that the $125,000 cap for a worker with a permanent and total disability has not been changed since 1987. If that cap were adjusted for inflation, it would be set at $221,455, according to the University of Kansas Institute for Policy and Social Research. It’s no wonder Kansas ranks near the bottom of states in workers’ compensation benefits.
“Legislators routinely pay lip service to the value of our work force, but if they really believe in supporting the workers of this state, they will fix this problem in 2009,” said Terry Humphrey, executive director of the Kansas Association of Justice, which is made up of labor groups and lawyers who represent injured workers.
Kansans and Wichitans have been selectively fond of setting term limits for some elected officials, with few second thoughts — though term-limited Wichita City Council member Paul Gray asserted early this year that “sometimes eight years is not enough.” According to the New York Times, communities across the country are seeking to roll back term limits. Voters in San Antonio, where Mayor Phil Hardberger has called term limits “an unmitigated disaster for the city,” will consider a proposal in November to extend rather than end them. He said: “When you keep putting people in, and throwing them out, there is very little accountability. We do a lot of churning here, but we don’t produce a lot of butter.” Term limits currently apply to 37 governors (including Kansas’ Kathleen Sebelius), 15 state legislatures and nine of the country’s 10 most populous cities.
In the end Wednesday, a legislative panel put the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit to work on a limited survey of the existing data about the financial costs and benefits of illegal immigration, rather than the sweeping audit sought by state Rep. Nile Dillmore, D-Wichita. That’s something. And the discussion was telling, as lawmakers wrestled with how to get solid data to guide further attempts to pass laws targeting illegal immigration. The point is that any legislative action should be informed by facts, rather than fear and ignorance.
Sen. Les Donovan, R-Wichita, even cast doubt on the notion that, full audit or not, the Legislature would or could do much about illegal immigration (“Not in my lifetime,” he predicted), because federal law already requires that public schools accept undocumented children and emergency rooms aren’t going to start turning away illegal immigrants in need of help. “This is America,” Donovan said. “We don’t do that.”
After the coal wars of the past legislative session ended with Holcomb plant opponents on top, the buzz was that the advocacy groups behind nearly $1 million in ads during that fight would insert themselves in specific election campaigns. But so far it’s quiet out there, and Harris News Service reports that most of the groups involved “say they’re not planning to spend additional dollars trying to influence the outcome of legislative races.” Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s Steve Miller did say the company planned to contribute to some supportive candidates. And in general, he said, “we are going to continue to advance the cause of getting those power plants built.”
The Kansas Energy Council has released 15 preliminary policy recommendations for the 2009 legislative session, including encouraging “policies that promote declines in greenhouse-gas emissions, not policies that merely shift emissions within or between regions,” and reducing the maximum speed limit from 70 to 65 mph on Kansas highways. The council will hold the second of two public comment hearings from 9 a.m. to noon Sept. 30 at Wichita State University’s Marcus Welcome Center, 21st Street and Mike Oatman Drive.
If a deal on the Wall Street bailout truly is at hand, John McCain’s call to delay Friday’s first presidential debate should be moot. It’s time that McCain and Barack Obama faced off, not just for the 18 percent of undecided voters but for the country. But there has been much speculation about McCain’s motives. David Letterman (in photo with McCain from April) exhaustively chided the candidate on Wednesday’s “Late Show” for putting his campaign on hold to focus on the financial crisis, especially because McCain canceled Letterman but did an interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric. “You’re a fourth term senator from Arizona. You handle what you need to handle. Don’t suspend your campaign. You let your campaign go on, shouldered by your vice presidential nominee,” Letterman said.
