Posted Monday, March 8 at 6:04 AM CST, 7:04 AM EST, 1204 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Monday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) In the Washington Post, Robert Samuelson looks at a new survey that breaks down Americans’ attitudes along generational lines. “The deep slump has hit Millennials hard. According to Pew, almost two-fifths of 18- to 29-year-olds (37 percent) are unemployed or out of the labor force, “the highest share . . . in more than three decades.”… About a third say they’re receiving financial help from their families, and 13 percent of 22- to 29-year-olds have moved in with parents after living on their own…. Millennials could become the chump generation. They could suffer for their elders’ economic sins, particularly the failure to confront the predictable costs of baby boomers’ retirement…. Their ardor for Obama is already cooling. Will higher taxes dim their enthusiasm for government?”
2) In the WP, E. J. Dionne looks at legislation sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) aimed at reining in the Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United decision. “Republicans should also be alarmed that this decision could encourage politicians to extort campaign spending from businesses. Is it really so hard to imagine a congressional leader quietly approaching a business executive and suggesting that unless her company invested heavily in certain key electoral contests, this regulation or that spending program might be changed at the expense of her enterprise?… Many Republicans, above all Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have been at the forefront of trying to clean up the campaign-money system in the past.”
3) In the New York Times, Paul Krugman looks at a recent study that compares the effect of the global recession in Ireland to that in the United States. “Ireland had none of the American right’s favorite villains: there was no Community Reinvestment Act, no Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. More surprising, perhaps, was the unimportance of exotic finance: Ireland’s bust wasn’t a tale of collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps; it was an old-fashioned, plain-vanilla case of excess, in which banks made big loans to questionable borrowers, and taxpayers ended up holding the bag…. But the most striking similarity between Ireland and America was ‘regulatory imprudence’: the people charged with keeping banks safe didn’t do their jobs.”
Posted Sunday, March 7 at 12:19 AM CST, 1:19 AM EST, 0619 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Sunday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) Continuing her visit to Riyadh, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reports on her interview with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal. The prince voiced frustration with the Israeli-Palestinian situation: “If the settlements are illegitimate, the least you would expect is that the aid the United States gives to Israel would cut that part that is going to build settlements. Israel is getting away without implementing the Geneva Convention as an occupying authority. Now if it were somewhere else, in Burma or somewhere like that, hell would be raised.” Dowd: “It’s probably a sign of progress that Prince Saud calls it ‘a border dispute.’ Unless it’s just his understated way. He also refers to ‘the 9/11 incident’ and alludes to the Holocaust obliquely as ‘World War II.’” On the possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iran, the prince remarks dryly: “I think this would change lifestyles at once, forcibly.” The prince allows as that the rhetoric of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “achieves no objective … and just creates tensions.” He insists that an allied military victory in Afghanistan will be difficult if not impossible, “unless you want to bring down the Himalayas.”
2) In the NYT, Frank Rich expresses the fear that the Obama presidency will be short-circuited by the lengthy impasse over health-care reform. “For the sake of argument, let’s say that Obama does eke out his victory…. The 2010 election will instead be fought about the economy, as most elections are, especially in a recession whose fallout remains severe. But that battle may be even tougher for this president and his party — and not just because of the unemployment numbers. The leadership shortfall we’ve witnessed during Obama’s yearlong health care march — typified by the missed deadlines, the foggy identification of his priorities, the sometimes abrupt shifts in political tone and strategy — won’t go away once the bill does. This weakness will remain unless and until the president himself corrects it.”
3) In the Washington Post, ombudsman Andrew Alexander weighs in on columnist David Broder’s criticism of reporting last month in the paper by Dana Milbank and Jason Horowitz concerning White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. “I think Broder is partially right. The Horowitz story deserved to be in The Post. While offering no major revelations, it did flesh out the thesis [of Milbank's earlier column]…. A greater problem, I think, was its heavy reliance on anonymous quotes. At least a dozen people were quoted by name, showing depth of reporting. But there were more than a half dozen others quoted anonymously, comprising more than a quarter of the story’s length. Most supported Emanuel. The story could have stood on its own without them.”
Posted Saturday, March 6 at 12:10 AM CST, 1:10 AM EST, 0610 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Saturday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) The Washington Post grants space to Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who stakes out a position on the use of the budget reconciliation process for health-care reform legislation. “Reconciliation is not being considered for passing comprehensive health-care reform. Major health-care reform legislation passed the Senate without reconciliation on Christmas Eve. If the House now passes that legislation, it can go immediately to President Obama’s desk to be signed into law. What the president and others have suggested is that, after the House acts, reconciliation could then be used to pass a much smaller ‘fixer’ bill to allow for modifications to the comprehensive bill that will have passed under regular order…. If the Senate bill can be further improved with changes made through a small ‘fixer’ reconciliation package, we should do so. Those who argue against its use in this context seek only to protect the status quo on health care.”
2) “What a disaster it has been,” writes Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal of President Obama’s health-care reform efforts. “In terms of policy, his essential mistake was to choose health-care expansion over health-care reform. This at the exact moment voters were growing more anxious about the cost and reach of government. The practical mistake was that he did not include or envelop congressional Republicans from the outset, but handed the bill’s creation over to a Democratic Congress that was becoming a runaway train. This at the exact moment Americans were coming to be concerned that Washington was broken, incapable of progress, frozen in partisanship.” Even moderate Republicans have declined to cooperate on the matter, because “the past decade has taught them what a disaster looks like, and they’ve lost their taste for standing next to one.”
3) In the WSJ’s Weekend Interview, Matthew Kaminski speaks to Mosab Hassan Yousef, who was disowned by his father when he left Palestinian radical group Hamas, converted to Christianity, and became a spy for Israeli internal security agency Shin Bet. He describes his experiences in his new book, Son Of Hamas. “Simply my enemies of yesterday became my friends. And the friends of yesterday became really my enemies…. The problem is not in Muslims … The problem is with their God. They need to be liberated from their God. He is their biggest enemy. It has been 1,400 years they have been lied to.”
Posted Friday, March 5 at 12:49 AM CST, 1:49 AM EST, 0649 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Friday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) In the Washington Post, Kevin Huffman tees off on a fund-raising presentation prepared for a Republican National Committee gathering which inadvertently fell into the hands of reporters. “What if, instead of labeling your small donors as ‘reactionary,’ you thought of them as ‘passionate’? And for the large donors, instead of ‘ego-driven,’ you could consider them ‘thought leaders.’ You see what I did there? It’s a slight nuance, but if you give your donors a teeny bit more credit, it sets up a different framework to address some of the message and outreach challenges delineated below. Plus, these days, you never know what will wind up on the Internet — it’s probably best to word things in a way that won’t alienate your supporters.”
2) In the WP, Michael Gerson suggests that conservatives ought to support President Obama’s efforts at education reform. “Some conservatives object to any policy that involves a federal role in education, no matter how effective. But education policy points to the limits of federalism. States and localities have often protected and perpetuated systemic educational malpractice. And it is a basic commitment of justice that when local institutions seriously fail, higher-level institutions should intervene. Local authority is the first, best response — but it is not an excuse for Jim Crow laws or for schools that never succeed and never change. In this debate, Obama and [Education Secretary Arne] Duncan have undertaken the right fight for the right reasons. And credit is due.”
3) In the New York Times, David Brooks compares the “tea party” movement to the New Left of some 40 years ago, suggesting that “the similarities are more striking than the differences. To start with, the Tea Partiers have adopted the tactics of the New Left. They go in for street theater, mass rallies, marches and extreme statements that are designed to shock polite society out of its stupor…. Members of both movements believe in what you might call mass innocence. Both movements are built on the assumption that the people are pure and virtuous and that evil is introduced into society by corrupt elites and rotten authority structures…. The New Left then, like the Tea Partiers now, had a legitimate point about the failure of the ruling class. But they ruined it through their own imprudence, self-righteousness and naïve radicalism. The Tea Partiers will not take over the G.O.P., but it seems as though the ’60s political style will always be with us — first on the left, now the right.”
Posted Thursday, March 4 at 1:01 AM CST, 2:01 AM EST, 0701 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Thursday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) In the Washington Post, David Broder challenges his own paper’s reporting on White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. “In the space of 10 days, thanks in no small part to my own newspaper, the president of the United States has been portrayed as a weakling and a chronic screw-up who is wrecking his administration despite everything that his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, can do to make things right.” The articles in question carried the bylines of Dana Milbank and Jason Horowitz. Broder suspects that Emanuel “probably vented his frustrations to some of his old pals in Congress. It’s clear that some of them are talking to the press.” He chides Millbank, who “now is urging Obama to emulate Gordon Brown, who is probably just weeks away from being voted out as Britain’s prime minister, and start bullying people himself.”
2) In the WP, E. J. Dionne challenges Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), whose recent op-ed for the paper blasted Democrats for proposing to use the budget reconciliation process to pass health-care reform legislation. Dionne points out that, under the Bush administration, reconciliation was used to pass tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Dionne: “I’m disappointed in Hatch, co-sponsor of two of my favorite bills in recent years. One created the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. The other, signed last year by Obama, broadly expanded service opportunities. Hatch worked on both with his dear friend, the late Edward M. Kennedy, after whom the service bill was named.”
3) In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof relates the story of Nujood Ali, a 12-year-old Yemeni girl whose book, “I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced,” has become a bestseller in France and has just been published in the United States. Notes Kristof: “Yemen is one of my favorite countries, with glorious architecture and enormously hospitable people. Yet Yemen appears to be a time bomb. It is a hothouse for Al Qaeda…. It’s no coincidence that Yemen is also ranked dead last in the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap index.” After Nujood showed up in a Yemeni courtroom to demand release from an arranged marriage, local journalists took up her cause. Her book royalties have enabled her to support her family, to which she now has returned. Kristof: “At first, Nujood’s brothers criticized her for shaming the family. But now that Nujood is the main breadwinner, everybody sees things a bit differently.”
Posted Wednesday, March 3 at 12:25 AM CST, 1:25 AM EST, 0625 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Wednesday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) “Sometimes I think I’ve gotten too cynical after so many years in Washington,” writes Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post, her cynicism confirmed by the lenient treatment offered by the House Ethics Committee to Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel. “Rangel was wrist-slapped because the committee determined that he should have known his Caribbean jaunts with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus were underwritten by corporations, in violation of House rules. The New York Democrat’s most serious ethics problems, trifles such as failing to declare income on taxes and financial disclosure forms, are still — what a surprise! — under review by the committee.”
2) In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd reports on her recent visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where King Abdullah has introduced a modicum of liberalization: “Young Saudi women whom I interviewed said that the popular king has relaxed the grip of the bullying mutawa, the bearded religious police officers who patrol the streets ready to throw you in the clink at the first sign of fun or skin.” Nevertheless, the columnist notes that any talk of liberalization “is highly relative when it comes to Saudi Arabia…. There’s still plenty of draconian pandemonium. Days before I arrived, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice cracked down with a Valentine’s Day massacre, banning red roses and teddy bears and raiding shops at any flash of crimson. Islamic scholars declared the holiday a sin because it promoted ‘immoral relations’ between unmarried men and women.”
3) In the NYT, Thomas Friedman recounts his recent interview with Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who is concerned about the future of American innovation and competitiveness. Otellini on the weakness of math and science education in American schools: “As a citizen, I hate it. As a global employer, I have the luxury of hiring the best engineers anywhere on earth.” On the Obama administration’s priorities: ““I’d like to see competitiveness and education take a higher role than they are today…. Right now, they’re going to try to push this health care thing over the line, and, after that, deal with the next thing. God, I’d just like this [our competitiveness] to be the next thing.”
Posted Tuesday, March 2 at 12:01 AM CST, 1:01 AM EST, 0601 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Tuesday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) Former congressman Harold Ford Jr. takes to the pages of the New York Times to announce that he will not, after all, challenge incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in a party primary. “I was considered out of touch with mainstream Democrats when I argued against spending more than $200 million a year to hold the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed trial in New York. I was also labeled out of touch for advocating a payroll tax cut for small businesses and for putting a jobs bill before a scaled-down health reform bill. Though much more needs to be done to create jobs, I am pleased that these ideas have now become part of the Democratic mainstream…. I’ve examined this race in every possible way, and I keep returning to the same fundamental conclusion: If I run, the likely result would be a brutal and highly negative Democratic primary — a primary where the winner emerges weakened and the Republican strengthened.”
2) In the Washington Post, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) cautions Democrats against using the budget reconciliation procedure to achieve passage of health-care reform legislation. “This use of reconciliation to jam through this legislation, against the will of the American people, would be unprecedented in scope. And the havoc wrought would threaten our system of checks and balances, corrode the legislative process, degrade our system of government and damage the prospects of bipartisanship…. Reconciliation was designed to balance the federal budget. Both parties have used the process, but only when the bills in question stuck close to dealing with the budget. In instances in which other substantive legislation was included, the legislation had significant bipartisan support. For example, Congress used reconciliation to carry welfare reform in 1996, which ultimately passed with 78 votes. And when reconciliation was used to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program that I authored with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1997, the program got 85 votes and served as the glue to passing the first balanced budget in 40 years. Both plans were negotiated with, and signed into law by, President Bill Clinton.”
3) In the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens compares the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. Despite having suffered a much stronger earthquake, Chile fared better, Stephens insists, because a generation ago it followed the advice of such economists as Milton Friedman. “Chile … has some of the world’s strictest building codes. That makes sense for a country that straddles two massive tectonic plates. But having codes is one thing, enforcing them is another. The quality and consistency of enforcement is typically correlated to the wealth of nations. The poorer the country, the likelier people are to scrimp on rebar, or use poor quality concrete, or lie about compliance. In the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, thousands of children were buried under schools also built according to code.”
Posted Monday, March 1 at 12:35 AM CST, 1:35 AM EST, 0635 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Monday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) “There is a make-believe quality to modern American politics,” writes Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post. “People — and this applies across the political spectrum — say things that are stupid, misleading or unattainable and think (or pretend) that these very same things are desirable, candid and realistic…. On the right, we have conservatives clamoring for tax cuts when, as a practical matter, today’s massive budget deficits preclude permanent new tax cuts…. On the left, President Obama and Democrats have spent the past year arguing that, despite the government’s massive deficits and overspending, they can responsibly propose even more spending.”
2) In the New York Times, Paul Krugman argues that watered-down financial-reform legislation might be worse than no reform at all. “Better, then, to take a stand, and put the enemies of reform on the spot. And by all means let’s highlight the dispute over a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency…. The only way consumers will be protected under future antiregulation administrations — and believe me, given the power of the financial lobby, there will be such administrations — is if there’s an agency whose whole reason for being is to police bank abuses.”
3) In the NYT, Ross Douthat trumpets the presidential prospects of Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN). “In a just world, Daniels’s record would make him the Tea Party movement’s favorite politician. During the fat years of the mid-2000s, while most governors went on spending sprees, he was trimming Indiana’s payroll, slowing the state government’s growth, and turning a $800 million deficit into a consistent surplus…. But Daniels hasn’t just been a Dr. No on policy. His ‘Healthy Indiana’ plan, which offers catastrophic coverage to low-income residents, aspires to eventually cover 130,000 people, about a third of the state’s long-term uninsured.”
Posted Sunday, February 28 at 12:12 AM CST, 1:12 AM EST, 0612 GMT.
Top editorial and op-ed commentaries in the Sunday editions of the leading U. S. newspapers:
1) The New York Times grants space to former vice president Al Gore, who weighs in on the most recent developments in the climate-change debate. “It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law…. The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.”
2) In the Washington Post, David Ignatius worries that ongoing geopolitical trends and the impasse in Congress over health-care reform may be harbingers of long-term American decline. “It’s usually a mistake to bet against America, as financier Warren Buffett likes to say, given our flexible economy and adaptive political system. The American system seemed at an impasse in the years before the Civil War, and again during the presidency of Herbert Hoover, and once again during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. But it survived these crises and went on to prosper as never before…. But the system doesn’t guarantee success…. Obama tried a new approach Thursday to breaking the logjam, gathering both parties around one big table. He makes a good prime minister, but the party of inertia is strong.”
3) “This DSM defines as ‘personality disorders’ attributes that once were considered character flaws,” writes George Will in the WP, as the columnist looks at the fourth edition of the psychiatric profession’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). “Today’s DSM defines ‘oppositional defiant disorder’ as a pattern of ‘negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures.’ Symptoms include ‘often loses temper,’ ‘often deliberately annoys people’ or ‘is often touchy.’ DSM omits this symptom: ‘is a teenager.’”
Posted Saturday, February 27 at 12:25 AM CST, 1:25 AM EST, 0625 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 expresses dissatisfaction with President Obama’s performance at the health-care summit. “Nothing in the health-care summit promised greater progress or movement. Positions started out hardened, and likely ended so. Good faith and generosity did not flourish…. Mr. Obama will not have helped himself by his manner. The summit highlighted, even showcased, something unappealing and unhelpful there, a tendency to attempt to show dominance and command by patronizing, even subtly bullying, even trimming. All people in public life have moments like this—most people do, in whatever walk—but you’re not supposed to have them when you’re trying to sway minds, reach out and build support…. The president has entered a boorish phase.”
2) In the WSJ’s Weekend Interview, Paul Ingrassia speaks to Ford president and CEO Alan Mulally. “Ford’s recent success is already amazing considering the prior half-dozen years of near-fatal decline. If it continues, Mr. Mulally will be credited with one of the great turnarounds in corporate history. His method has been to simplify, relentlessly and systematically, a business that had grown way too complicated and costly to be managed effectively,” Ingrassia notes. Mulally: “It’s back to Henry Ford’s original vision, isn’t that cool?… It’s all about producing products people want.”
3) In the wake of the withdrawal of Gov. David Paterson (D-NY) from his campaign to be elected for a full term, Bob Herbert, writing in the New York Times, questions whether the governor should even serve out his remaining 10 months. “There are two immediate questions for voters: Why did the governor select David Johnson, a man with a troubled background and no demonstrated command of state government policies or practices (at one time he was the governor’s driver) to be his most powerful, most trusted adviser? And why, in the name of heaven, did people close to the governor, and perhaps even the governor himself, intervene to protect Mr. Johnson from an ugly domestic violence allegation?”