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Thursday, September 7, 2006
CDC reports, Streisand, public schools
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s free-for-all Friday. Pick a topic:
• Show me a Southerner, governor or not, who won’t buy the adjoining dirt and I’ll show you one who’s broke. Gov. Sonny Perdue bought about 100 acres next to his Houston County home in 2004. What does that tell us? That he wasn’t broke. Nothing more.
• Don’t back down. Voter ID is a legitimate requirement. No matter the delays partisans entice from judges, the state should persist until all are swept aside.
• Some Christian conservatives, upset about what their children are being taught, flee public schools. That shouldn’t be necessary. Every classroom should be broadcast over the Internet for parents or anybody else. There’d certainly be far less temptation to preach to children values that are at odds with their parents’.
• Another sad Katrina legacy: Every tropical storm now is a major preoccupation.
• I’m embarrassed to say: I don’t have an opinion about Michael Vick. I’m told everybody does. I do have an opinion about Fulton Sheriff Myron Freeman. That guy can flat pass the ball.
• Most every report I read about that originates with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta sounds like something that could have come out of a blue-state liberal arts college. The latest examines radio advertising by the alcohol industry. The nanny state has finger-pointers aplenty. Chart disease, not radio airplay.
• Notice to Atlanta panhandlers: Don’t expect handouts from liberals in November. They’ll all be tapped out. Tickets to the Barbra Streisand performance here on Nov. 2 cost up to $752. Or up to $5,000 per person for VIP packages. Surely there’s a federal program available that buys tickets for the homeless.
• Dang straight. The place to find oil is where geologists believe it to be, as demonstrated by this week’s revelation that Chevron and two partners had discovered what could be the biggest oil find since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska almost 40 years ago. Open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, too.
• Want to frighten the children? Tell them, as the Wall Street Journal did, who’ll be running the U.S. House if Democrats take it over in November. There’s Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a cast of characters that includes a tax committee chairman, Charles Rangel, who opposed President Bush’s tax cuts, a possible intelligence committee chairman, Alcee Hastings, who as a federal judge was impeached and convicted of lying to beat a bribery charge, and a Judiciary Committee chairman, John Conyers, who looks to impeach President Bush.
• The telling number about Georgia Power Co.’s so-called “green energy” offering is how many liberals sign up. It costs more to produce, so the price is higher. The company estimates that 0.4 percent of its customers will sign up; nationally, it’s about 1.5 percent. Liberals want companies to embrace their environmental agendas — on your dollar. They don’t want to pay extra themselves.
• Here’s a sign-off for CBS’ new anchor: “Thanks for watching our opinion of the news. I’m Katie Couric. Good night.” Simple, honest.
• MARTA has two finalists for its top job. One guy, Richard McCrillis, is here — and even Ernie Brooks, president of MARTA’s union, likes him. I favor getting good people, bringing them along and leaving them alone. That would draw me to MARTA veteran McCrillis, who has a degree in mathematics and believes in piggy banking the profits. Besides, the other guy’s boss says it “would be a tragic loss to Los Angeles” to lose him. Some praise is a bit too much.
• Duh. Catch-and-release, a border security practice applied to non-Mexicans, is being discontinued. Mexicans could be returned immediately. Non-Mexicans were detained, given a court date and released. Most vanished into the U.S. population. Now they’re detained. Enforcement messages matter. For the three-month period ending Aug. 6, the number of non-Mexicans detained was 1,661, down from 10,621 during the same period last year.
• Now we know where Cynthia McKinney got it. The wackiness. In Japan. An exhibit in the national military museum there accuses FDR of engineering war with Japan to strengthen the U.S. economy following the failure of his New Deal, reports the Financial Times. After objection from a Japanese political commentator, it’s being removed.
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Bush dumb, you say? Look again.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While the dumb and stupid laugh at jokes about how dumb George W. Bush is, the reality is that while fools are sniggering, Bush wins. A good example was Wednesday’s announcement that 14 seriously bad guys who had been in CIA custody around the world would be transferred to Guantanamo for trial. Those seriously bad guys included Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged would-be hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001, and suspected terrorists responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
While they’re to be afforded some Geneva Convention legal protections, there’s no recognition — nor should there be — that they’re entitled to POW status. They will be tried by a military commission and will surely be eligible for the death penalty. Bush could not have been clearer on who they are: “The terrorists who declared war on America represent no nation. They defend no territory. And they wear no uniform. They do not mass armies on borders or flotillas of warships on the high seas.” And more: “They live quitely among their victims. They conspire in secret. And then they strike without warning.” Terrorists. “These aren’t common criminals or bystanders accidentally swept up on the battlefield.”
With the 14 seriously bad guys awaiting trial, Bush asks Congress to clear up the impairment the U.S. Supreme Court imposed on treatment and trials by providing specific authorization and clarity. Bush flatly denies that the U.S. engages in torture — “it’s against our laws and against our values” — but he preserves both the CIA prisons and the right to use unspecified techniques known to the CIA’s inspector general and key Congressional leaders to gain information from terrorists.
So what’s the dumb Bush done? He’s given up nothing of value to terrorists. He’s given Congress a bill that comes attached with the suspected deeds of 14 seriously bad guys so that those tempted to play games for political advantage are dealing with faces and cases, not legal abstractions. And he makes clear that the obligation of Congress is to provide clarity and protection to the troops who handle the evil-doers. Not bad for a fellow constantly under-estimated by critics and enemies.
