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Thursday, September 14, 2006
Stingrays, Lewinsky, free Whitney
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s Friday free-for-all. Pick a topic:
• Get the counselors to the classrooms. Since “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray, alleged revenge-seekers have killed 10 of them. A two-part plan of action is needed. First, counselors. Then work up a lesson plan on stingray tolerance. Maybe cut 15 minutes out of the math class every Thursday to squeeze it in.
• On the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) declared “violence is obsolete as a tool of our foreign policy.” These are the people who would lead us in an unsafe world.
• Some heed Lewis’ guidance. The opportunity existed with an armed drone to kill more than 100 Taliban fighters packed together at a funeral for one killed earlier in the day. The United States declined because of the setting. So now they live to kill another day. Terrorists live because somebody thinks the bad press worldwide will cause more harm than the live terrorists.
• A Vent author speculates that the pandas hired the Seegers’ restaurant PR guy. Nah. He’s working the Mark Taylor-Cathy Cox snit.
• Chicago Mayor Richard Daley vetoed the proposed “living wage” ordinance directed at Wal-Mart, contending it would drive businesses from the city. What a crazy thought — that government can legislate business out of existence or out of the market. This is not news to conservatives. • It’s kinda late in the Braves’ season. Shouldn’t we have a magic number by now?
• Monica Lewinsky may yet be revealed to have been an important historical figure. At a crucial time in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, she distracted President Clinton and therefore the country.
• In the Georgia House of Representatives, where new University System Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr. was being installed, Albany State University student Kendria Bailey sang an a cappella rendition of “Amazing Grace,” a favorite of Southern funerals, so beautifully that it was darn rude of all there not to have been a corpse.
• Timothy Shelnut of Augusta, a member of the University System Board of Regents, spoke, too. You gotta love America. His father, a cotton mill worker, died at 83, never having learned to read or write. His mother has a third-grade education. He quit school in the 12th grade. And here he is speaking at the installation of a chancellor who presides over 35 colleges and universities. And the chancellor, Erroll Davis, was born into a world where the idea that a black boy would grow up to achieve this honor was too preposterous to imagine.
• And finally, from this event, there’s my new inspiration, a 10th-grader from Carver Early College high school in Atlanta. Givonte Latimore stood before the governor, the chancellor, the regents and the presidents of 35 colleges and legislators as a representative of the next generation of college students. And drew a blank in delivering his remarks. Yet he stood there, kept his composure and manfully worked his way through it. A classy performance in overcoming one of everybody’s worst fears. All others spoke less memorably.
• Eliminating the state income tax on retiree income, as Gov. Sonny Perdue proposes, is one shoe. Surely there’s another. Reform, maybe. Not that tax-services “reform” that Democratic policy wonks have pushed for years as a way to get more money for social programs.
• A law that criminalizes parents for choosing a better or more convenient school for their children is fundamentally wrong. Fayette County school officials have led police to arrest a mother and grandmother of three children for “false swearing,” a felony, for declaring the children to be residents of the county. The fix is to transfer the sum Clayton County would have spent to educate them to Fayette.
• Oh, how far I have fallen. I have an opinion about Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, whose relationship prompted a special exception to my 25-year Rule of Marriage. The rule: Never try to comprehend anything about the relationship of couples married for 25 years or more. With this exception: For the two of them, it’s a 14-year Rule. But for that, I’d say dump him and try to straighten out Osama bin Laden —who is allegedly obsessed with her.
Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
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Chafee or conservative GOP?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The success of U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee against a conservative Republican primary challenger in Rhode Island on Tuesday was no real surprise. Though he had voted against the Bush tax cuts, the war in Iraq, and Sam Alito’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, the First Lady and other prominent Republicans campaigned for him. The reason was simple and obvious. They think he can win in November, while conservative Steve Laffey couldn’t. And with six seats flipping Senate control, an in-house Democrat is far preferable to an out-house Democrat. It’s evidence of the “big tent” GOP, said White House spokesman Tony Snow.
The Georgia Republicans, who are just beginning to get their bearings as a governing party, are at the stage where they have to decide whether they want to govern as conservatives or “big tent” Republicans. In the mold of Chaffe, the big tent Republicans are comfortable with Big Government and see down-the-middle compromise as to its size, role and cost as a virtue. They’ll not fly the plane into the mountain, but gradually and incrementally, they’ll expand government’s cost and reach, though less they believe than the Democrats.
Conservative governance, on the other hand, would be to find ways to reduce its size and reach, while cultivating personal responsibility and self-reliance, thereby reducing dependence. (That sentence, incidentally, will be instantly understood by most conservatives and though jibberish by most liberals. We speak two languages in this country, and they’re not English and Spanish) Quickly, though, it means that conservatives use government to seed ideas like health and retirement savings accounts that offer incentive to make responsible choices. In a generation or two, Americans can grow out of the dependence we’ve grown into.
Is it better, therefore, to create the big-tent majority so that government’s growth and reach are slowed slightly over time — the Lincoln Chafee option — or to hold out for a conservative governing majority? Obviously getting into the position to govern is vital, even if it takes a dozen Chafees. But both parties can’t be just a jumble of politicans who grow government at slightly different rates.
Lots of red-blooded fiscal conservatives are talking of sitting this one out, or of voting for a third party. Both are folly. Do either and Nancy Pelosi is Speaker and Ted Kennedy matters.
