“We are acting as reluctant shareholders, because that is the only way to help GM succeed,” President Obama said today about General Motors’ bankruptcy filing. But Obama isn’t reluctant enough for some. “Although the bureaucrats disclaim any interest in micromanaging the automaker, it isn’t hard to imagine them nudging and guiding decisions in directions they would like them to go,” wrote Alex Taylor of Fortune magazine. A Wall Street Journal editorial said that Obama “has made himself GM’s de facto CEO. Our guess is that he’ll come to regret it as much as taxpayers will.”
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, thinks that former Bush Cabinet member Henry Paulson should go down as the worst Treasury secretary ever and that current Secretary Timothy Geithner is the next worst. Tiahrt told The Eagle editorial board that if the United States focuses on growing the economy from the ground up, rather than the government taking over much of the economy, the recession could be over in six months.
Whatever one thinks of what George Tiller did for a living, and for the thousands of women who visited his East Kellogg clinic over the decades, the only appropriate response to his murder Sunday was shock, followed by condemnation, our editorial today argues.
The overwhelming majority of those who consider themselves pro-life in the community and country do not advocate or condone the killing of abortion providers. Several local and national pro-life groups responded to the murder with unequivocal condemnation.
Still, sadly, it won’t be surprising if the searing heat of the debate, and the extreme name-calling directed by some toward Tiller, once again motivated someone to think such an act of violence was justifiable.
It can be hoped that in dealing with the horror of Tiller’s murder, people will pause to consider what the abortion wars have wrought, and whether there might be a better way.
“There’s something about conservatives’ ferocious ‘No’ that precisely fits the temper of the times,” Thomas Frank wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “For all the past year’s Democratic victories, the GOP still owns outrage, still has an enormous capacity to summon up offense, to elevate every perceived slight into an unprecedented imposition upon both the hardworking citizen and freedom itself. What really dazzles the observer, though, is conservatives’ fury over things for which they are themselves responsible.” For example, Frank cited how Newt Gingrich is railing about the influence of lobbyists yet helped oversee the GOP’s “K Street Strategy” that empowered lobbyists. Frank also noted how Dick Cheney praised tea parties that protested, among other things, the financial bailout program that his administration created.
“I want you to understand that anything I say is not to be critical of my successor,” President George W. Bush said last week. “There are plenty of critics in American society.” That, unfortunately, includes his former vice president, Dick Cheney, who should take cues from the civility and respect shown by Bush and President Clinton when they shared a stage in Toronto on Friday. Not only did the two presidents avoid criticizing President Obama, they defended each other’s actions on Rwanda and Darfur.
Oprah Winfrey, who already has been credited with rescuing the publishing industry with her book club, recently put in a welcome good word for general aviation. During her speech at Duke University’s commencement, she said this: “It is really fantastic to have your own jet, and anybody who says it isn’t is lying to you. That jet thing is really good,” she said, adding that “you really haven’t completed the circle of success unless you can help somebody move forward. . . . Move to higher ground. That’s the real goal.”
Oprah’s jet reportedly is a $42 million custom Global Express XRS built by Bombardier Aerospace, according to the Wall Street Journal, where a blogger suggested the industry “forget all the boring arguments about jobs and productivity and efficiency and run a picture of Oprah with one simple line: ‘It’s Great to Have a Private Jet.’”
