Posted Saturday, November 21, 5:36 AM CST, 6:36 AM EST, 1136 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Saturday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan has been counting her blessings as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches. “Last Thanksgiving, it looked as if a hard year was coming, and it was and it did…. But the mood of this Thanksgiving looks to be different.” Traveling along Fifth Avenue in a taxicab, she caught a glimpse of the flagship store of venerable New York retailer Bergdorf Goodman. “Something about the sight of it caught me—proud Bergdorf’s, anchor of midtown commerce. It looked exactly as it looked 10 years ago, 20, only better. Because it’s there. New York has been so damaged by the crash, and last year at this time small shops, the ones with the smallest margin for error, were closing. And now I see more that are opening, and Bergdorf’s is preparing its Christmas windows. The sight of it came like an affirmation. We’re still here. I am so grateful.”
2) In the WSJ’s Weekend Interview, Bari Weiss speaks to New York City Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi, a naturalized American citizen born in Eritrea. One sportswriter, who later retracted his remarks, described Keflezighi as only “technically American…. like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.” Keflezighi, for his part, asks rhetorically: “”What’s the list of things you need to be an American?… You live here, you pay taxes, you live by the American way. I’ve been here for 22 years. I’m as American as you can get.”
3) In the New York Times, Gail Collins discusses Oprah Winfrey’s announcement that she will be leaving her daily television show in 2011. “Few people have spent more time contemplating The Journey of Life than Oprah Winfrey, and on Friday she provided another useful tip in navigating it: Quit while you’re ahead…. the greatest decision a stellar public figure can make is to resist the temptation to keep doing the same thing forever. Even if the fans don’t want you to stop.”
4) In the NYT, Bob Herbert has been visiting Detroit, in the company of University of California academic Harley Shaiken, a Detroit native. “Detroit was still viable enough for the Republican Party to hold its convention here in 1980, when it nominated Ronald Reagan. And it was not the riots, but the devastating recession of the early ’80s that really knocked the city senseless. ‘That’s when the place really cracked,’ said Mr. Shaiken, ‘and that was about aggressive globalization and the lack of an industrial policy, not the riots.’… We need a revitalized industrial policy, including the creation of whole new industries, if American families are to prosper in the coming decades. If there is any sense of urgency about this in the hearts and minds of our corporate and government leaders, I’ve missed it.”
5) In the NYT, Charles Blow defends New York City against charges that it cannot handle security for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators. “Whether a civil or military trial would provide the best chances of securing a conviction while simultaneously signaling to the world a righting of America’s moral compass is a fair debate. But questioning whether New York City can handle the trial is an insult…. We New Yorkers live with the threat of terrorism every day — on our trains, in our high-rises, in our plazas. But we’ve learned to cope. Not by being afraid, but by being vigilant. Bringing Mohammed to Manhattan isn’t going to move the needle much.”