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Thursday, August 10, 2006
Voter ID, Trump towers and poker
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s free-for-all Friday. Pick a topic:
• Oh goodness. Donald Trump’s building in Atlanta. Just as soon as one oversized ego — Bill Campbell — heads to prison in 10 days, another comes to fill the void.
• So it was a four-flush phony? The list of 676,000 voters who allegedly lacked either a driver’s license or state ID card included a member of the State Elections Board, the father of one and the wife of another. That’s 3 of 5 elections board members who could swear to an error. The list was never anything but a campaign prop in a Democratic effort to block Georgia’s voter ID requirement.
• States, including Tennessee, that eschew runoffs should look to U.S. Rep. Harold Ford’s congressional seat in the Memphis area. A white guy won with 30 percent of the primary vote in a 60 percent black district where 15 Democrats were vying, 12 of them black. Did a majority get the candidate of their choice? No.
• Cousins purchase of the 191 Peachtree tower in downtown Atlanta is evidence that those with vision and money can sometimes steal a deal. That’s a high-class building sold cheap.
• Good show for U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), getting an extension for Delta and Northwest airlines to fully fund pensions. Without it, the companies said they’d have to scuttle the plans and turn them over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which caps benefits at about $47,000. They said it. I believe it.
• I may be an athlete after all. The World Series of Poker is covered as a sport. Does buying a scratch-off lottery ticket make me an athlete? Silly me, I assumed some physical exertion was required.
• What is with these colleges — Duke and now Morehouse — driven into a paroxysm of angst by news that one or more of their current or former students may have been involved in a crime? Universities ain’t their mommas and daddies. They don’t commit crimes. They don’t teach them, or unteach them, core values. So quit the hand-wringing about the obvious: It’s not the university’s fault. It’s a university’s fault when they exit dumb, not when they exit bad.
• If the U.S. soldiers raped and murdered a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and killed her parents and sister, as alleged, they deserve death.
• Cherokee County developers planning a 54-acre swim and tennis community will run background checks to make certain potential buyers aren’t registered sex offenders. That’s important to know, of course. But there’s no evidence the Alpharetta man accused of exposing his daughters to Internet gawkers or that the Gwinnett County man accused of shopping a 12-year-old to Internet predators would have failed the developers’ test. This smacks of a PR stunt.
• It’s darn cruel of Cobb police officials to fire an entire class of recruits for cheating on an exam. Recruits, having resolved that nobody would fail, undoubtedly thought of it as “team-building.” They are ahead of their time. A natural extension of schools promoting self-esteem over learning is that the unlearned would group-test so that nobody fails and all feel good. Such is modern team-building.
• From the “believe me or your lyin’ eyes” department: Reuters, the British-based news service, pulled 920 photos after bloggers revealed that a Lebanese freelance photographer had doctored at least two involving Israeli airplanes — one to add smoke after an airstrike and another to add a third flare to the two the plane actually dropped. Once a joke, it’s now a reality: You can’t always believe your lyin’ eyes.
• Katrina may be the greatest thing that ever happened to public education in New Orleans. It has a chance to start over.
• Barnesville Herald-Gazette Publisher Walter Geiger reports from Tybee Beach that on a brief walk “I saw more tattoos than our armed forces went ashore with on D-Day.” Not one, he writes, “complemented the body onto which it was affixed.” My 10-Year Rule applies to tattoos: If you haven’t changed your mind about anything in 10 years, or if you expect to be dead within 10, get a tattoo. Any size, any place. If you have or don’t, tattooing’s a bad decision.
• My 20-Year Rule applies to T-shirts bearing a politician’s likeness or campaign slogan. If you’re over 20 and still wearing one, it’s probably time to get a real job.
• Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
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Do-nothing Congress?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The rumblings rise from the hinterlands. It’s the sound of discontent, say the pollsters. The public is in a foul mood with barely three months to go before the November elections, a situation pundits and prognosticators liken to the months before the Gingrich Revolution swept Democrats from power a dozen years ago.
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week, 53 percent of the 1,002 randomly selected adults are anti-incumbent while 29 percent are inclined to reelect “almost precisely the same percentages as in June 1994,” the Post reports. While numbers would seem to favor Democrats (52-39), those surveyed were split down the middle on whether Democrats represent a clear difference.
Two problems with the 1994-again scenario: One is that the Contract with America spelled out clearly what the out-of-power GOP represented; this out-of-party power, as the poll revealed, stands for mush. Oh, they hate the war — 81 percent of Democrats say its not worth fighting — but that’s not enough to build a winning majority. The other problem is that redistricting leaves relatively few competitive Congressional districts. In Georgia, the two most in play — the 3d and the 12th — are held by Democrats. No Republican Congressman in this state will lose in November.
While some have called this a do-nothing Congress, House Republicans point to a long list of accomplishments, ranging from tough border security to a 37 percent reduction in earmarks, or $7.8 billion. They cite, too, House passage of a version of the line item veto, death tax repeal, health savings accounts, reauthorization of the Patriot Act, prescription drug, a 401(k) tax-deferred savings account for kids and various other initiatives, though all have not made it into law.
Lots of the disgruntled conservatives are upset about spending. But what’s the alternative? Bigger spenders? Not likely. It’s worth asking: Is this a do-nothing Congress and, if so, how do you intend to respond to it?
Frankly, I don’t want or expect that much. Secure borders, tax relief, a reduction in pork-barrel spending and support for the war on terrorism — that just about covers what I want out of Congress. Confirmation of judicial nominees is about all I want out of the Senate.
