The first editorial suggests that Kerry
"should take on a responsibility similar to the head of the British opposition, which is a shadow government that comments on what the people in power are doing and describes an alternate course.". To me, if Kerry is going to survive Dubya's advantage in fund raising, it has to be by getting as much free media as he can. Whenever something happens, he needs to make the round of the morning shows and the cable news networks to explain how he would do it differently. In the meantime because Dubya can't handle one-on-one's with reporters, Dubya will be reduced to repetitive non-interactive events. In the second, the Times makes the
point on gun control legislation that the Post should have in their editorials, "Trading support for the shabby immunity measure in exchange for the two amendments, as some proposed, was never a good deal. Civil lawsuits are a powerful tool for achieving lifesaving changes in gun-industry practices. In any case, the amendments were all but certain to be stripped from the House version of the bill. The supporters of sensible gun control laws should now turn their efforts to reviving the assault weapons ban and closing the gun-show loophole -- without any Faustian bargains." The third is about
estrogen therapy woes. The fourth thinks
Putin's new choice for Prime Minister is a promising one.
Nicholas Kristof compares the proposed amendment banning gay marriages to proposed amendments banning interracial marriages. William Safire has a piece on Kerry. It has a lot of mischaracterizations and double standards, but sadly it is better than most of his pieces. The first guest editorial argues celibate priests are happy priests. The other guest editorial makes a suggestion I find wacko - nominate Bill Clinton as VP. I think Clinton was one of our best presidents ever, but say his name and the right wing goes nut. Every scandal and psuedo-scandal of his 8 years will get rehashed over and over again. I can't think of a better way of having the media not discuss the issues that should decide this election.
The summary of the Washington Post is below.
The first Post editorial dislikes the
rapidfire primary season. The second is about
Virginia politics. The third surveys the
damage done by Catholic priests who were sexual abusers.
In a guest editorial, the Chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics says that his commission doesn't play politics with science. My favorite line - "While some have taken issue with this recommendation or that conclusion, these reports have been widely praised -- in the Hastings Center Report, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Magazine, among others -- for their balance, thoughtfulness, accuracy, moral seriousness and respect for competing opinions." Sounds like blurbs for a bad movie where they cite a glowing review from some paper I never heard of before. Jim Hoagland has a couple of whoppers in his piece on the upcoming civil war in Iraq. The first - "[T]he United States today is caught in a civil war within Islam. Al Qaeda's murder by airliner of nearly 3,000 people on American soil in one September day in 2001 leaves Americans without any other option." There are NO TIES BETWEEN IRAQ AND SEPTEMBER 11TH!!!!! The second - "The head U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer, wisely stayed on the sidelines as the Iraqis wrestled over the substance of the law, according to U.S. and Iraqi accounts of the deliberations." The BBC reports that, "When Saturday's deadline - a key part of US plans for handing over power to Iraqis by 30 June - passed without agreement, American officials helped to mediate." Anne Applebaum has a good piece on the popularity of movies that are psuedo-history. The CEO of Halliburton has a commercial, er editorial about how politicians are picking on his company. Unsurprisingly, he didn't discuss serving rotten vegetables and meats out of dirty kitchens to our troops in Iraq. Or the investigation which could implicate VP Cheney for bribing the Nigerian government to secure the rights to build a chemical plant. The last guest editorial thinks that Dubya's support of the amendment banning gay marriage helps gay rights. Steven Waldman is correct in that Dubya's stated "position is not all that different from that of John Kerry or John Edwards." However, he should look at the text of the amendment a little more closely - to me, it looks like it bans gay civil unions and lots of other gay rights.
Lastly, I would really like to thank Kos for making the Diary feature available. I tried to start a blog, but I just didn't get enough hits (20 was a typical day) to make the time worthwhile. I got at most one comment to any of my posts. I had 50 comments to my post on Saturday. The diaries are a great way of sharing my thoughts with lots of like-minded individuals. The only suggestion I would like to make is that I would really like to see some kind of traffic reporting on my diary entries.