http://www.ajc.com The latest headlines from AJC en-us Copyright 2009, Cox Newspapers Inc., AJC Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:24:23 EST Newspapers COXnet RSS Generator v1.0 http://img.coxnewsweb.com/C/08/17/52/image_1352178.jpg http://www.ajc.com 5 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/07/12/tucked_0712.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/07/12/tucked_0712.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:34:13 EDT For the first time, President Obama's overseas travel, with his photogenic family in tow, seemed jarring and discordant — out of touch with the everyday woes of constituents back home. As photographers flashed pictures of the first family abroad, analysts were poring over the depressing economic news of continuing job losses. Somehow, photos of the Obamas in resplendent, gold-bedecked palaces smacked of Marie Antoinette. It's not the president's fault that the gathering of the G-8, the world's biggest economies, was held overseas just as second-quarter economic reports revealed that unemployment in the U.S. had jumped to 9.5 percent. But, now that's he's back, it will be Obama's failure if he doesn't grab the microphone immediately to remind the nation that he has a plan to revive the economy and produce jobs. As Republicans complain that the stimulus was never a good idea and nervous Democrats scramble for a response, it will take Obama's soothing rhetoric to shore up jittery markets and head off a drastic drop in consumer confidence. If there is a silver lining in the recent unemployment reports, it's this: The news has forced the economy back to the top of the agenda. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/07/08/tucked_0708.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/07/08/tucked_0708.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Tue, 7 Jul 2009 18:30:10 EDT Not much was clear after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's rambling and petulant press conference, least of all whether she was bidding farewell to politics. But this much was obvious: She's angry that so many — TV comedians, feuding political consultants, unnamed media "sources" — have taken aim at her and her family. How dare they? How, indeed? Where was the governor when conservatives spent eight years ripping Hillary Clinton to shreds, even making foul jokes about her young daughter? Where was she when the right-wing attack machine went after Michelle Obama, blasting her as angry, unpatriotic and anti-white? Indeed, didn't Palin notice that the first woman to be named to a spot on a major party's presidential ticket — Geraldine Ferraro — wasn't exactly celebrated in a national lovefest? Are women more likely to endure harsh personal attacks than men? You betcha. Are families immune? No way. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/07/05/tucked_0705.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/07/05/tucked_0705.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Mon, 6 Jul 2009 12:26:45 EDT Apparently, Congress has scribbled some footnotes to Emma Lazarus' famous poem, engraved inside the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." But don't bother sending anyone released from detention at Guantanamo Bay. "Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/07/01/tucked_0701.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/07/01/tucked_0701.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Thu, 2 Jul 2009 19:57:11 EDT According to the U.S. Supreme Court, several white firefighters were treated unfairly by the city of New Haven, Conn., when it refused to promote them despite their high scores on a promotional exam. In a 5-4 decision handed down on Monday, the court ruled that the city should not have scrapped the test just because black firefighters performed poorly. That decision, in Ricci v. DeStefano, was eminently reasonable. You don't change the score after the game is over. To begin with, New Haven shouldn't have staked firefighters' promotions largely on the outcome of a classroom test; there are far better ways to determine leadership skills in a fire department. Many departments test prospective leaders by running simulations of real-life scenarios. After all, giving correct answers on a pencil-and-paper test hardly proves the capacity to lead the rescue of workers trapped in a burning building. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/28/tucked_0628.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/28/tucked_0628.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:10:09 EDT South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his family are in the midst of an emotionally wrenching and deeply personal crisis. I feel sorry for them. I'm willing to grant elected officials — including those who hold the highest office, the presidency — a zone of privacy, as long as their personal peccadilloes don't interfere with the public's business. (Sanford seems to have violated that standard when he flew off to Argentina, secretly, without formally turning the state's business over to the lieutenant governor.) I don't expect politicians to be priests. Among some constituencies, there is the naive view that a person's fitness for public office can be ascertained in his or her marital fidelity. But that simply isn't so. Life is too difficult and complex for such judgements. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/21/tucked_0621.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/21/tucked_0621.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:03:39 EDT The letter I received shortly after my annual mammogram was terse and ominous: The doctor wanted me to schedule a diagnostic mammogram to clarify something slightly suggestive from the first test. At that point, according to conservatives who push a "market-based" health care fix in which consumers take responsibility for cost control, I should have started to shop around for the cheapest diagnostic mammogram: $350, but you can't get to me for two months? $400 if I want the test a month from now? Needless to say, I didn't start looking for low-cost tests. Instead, I panicked and endured a couple of sleepless nights before I was retested. (All ended well; there were no signs of disease.) http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/17/tucked_0617.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/17/tucked_0617.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:46:27 EDT As any good politician would, President Barack Obama is trying to persuade skeptics to support his proposals for health care reform. On Monday, he spoke to the annual meeting of the American Medical Association, which has already made clear its reluctance to endorse one of the most critical components of the president's plan — government-sponsored health insurance. Obama believes a public health insurance option is a necessary alternative to private health insurance, which, as a profit-driven mechanism, can be both costly to consumers and stingy in its coverage. The president says a public insurance option can be paid for with premiums (rather than tax dollars) while still offering consumers the coverage they need. You'd think the AMA would be enthusiastic about a plan that would allow more people health care at a lower cost. Not so. Though its spokesmen have backpedaled from their initial response to a public plan — which was something like "hell, no" — the group is still testy over the idea of any major reform to the creaky and frustrating machinery we euphemistically call a health care "system." http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/14/tucked_0614.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/14/tucked_0614.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:17:40 EDT It would be easier to take Republicans seriously on government spending now if they'd ever complained about spending during the tenure of President George W. Bush — especially during the six years when they controlled government and could have cut spending dramatically. They could have fought the Pentagon on expensive and unnecessary weapons, eliminated farm subsidies to wealthy growers and pared back Medicare. Instead, they did just the opposite. They slashed taxes and substantially increased government spending, burning through the estimated $800 billion annual surplus the federal government had accumulated under Bill Clinton. The Republican-dominated Congress even passed a huge entitlement, the fiscally foolish prescription drug plan for the elderly. Now, though, with Democrats in control, Republicans are fiscal conservatives again — or so they say. All the fuss about mounting deficits prompted President Barack Obama to tell Congress last week that he'd reintroduce the "pay as you go'" law, which expired in 2002. It would require new spending programs be paid for with budget cuts or revenue increases. And it's not a bad idea. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/10/tucked_0610.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/10/tucked_0610.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Tue, 9 Jun 2009 19:24:22 EDT Osama bin Laden was so worried that President Obama's Cairo speech might win over Muslim hearts and minds that the jihadist sent out a pre-emptory audiotaped message denouncing the United States and warning against Obama's "new beginning." It turns out that bin Laden was right to be worried: The president did, it seems, change some minds in the Middle East. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/07/tucked_0607.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/07/tucked_0607.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Fri, 5 Jun 2009 20:36:15 EDT You can understand why Iraqis were outraged by the decision of a federal jury last month to spare the life of a U.S. soldier who was the ringleader of a group that gang-raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in her home and then murdered her parents and 6-year-old sister to cover up the crime. You need not be a fan of the death penalty — and I'm not — to question the sentence. If there is to be a death penalty, doesn't such a crime demand it? Apparently, there were jurors who disagreed. When the jury deadlocked on the sentence, the law dictated the lesser penalty of life without parole. Capital punishment is too weighty a matter to be determined by a less-than-unanimous vote. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/03/tucked_0603.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/06/03/tucked_0603.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Tue, 2 Jun 2009 18:31:22 EDT When President Barack Obama delivers his highly anticipated speech in Cairo on Thursday, he'll communicate several messages, including his respect for Islam and his desire for Middle East peace. Let's hope he also reiterates his commitment to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It has come to represent an America that ignores its own values, shreds the Constitution and denies basic civil rights to suspects; its existence has alienated allies and given comfort to our enemies. It's important for Muslims to know the president means to keep his pledge. And it's important that the message be delivered in Cairo. The authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak has a hideous record on human rights, and the vicious tactics used by Mubarak and his predecessors are largely responsible for pushing some Egyptians into the arms of al-Qaida. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/31/tucked_0531.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/31/tucked_0531.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Fri, 29 May 2009 19:44:35 EDT Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see." — Sonia Sotomayor, Oct. 2001 Eight years ago, Judge Sonia Sotomayor gave an unremarkable speech in which she discussed the importance of race and gender diversity on the bench. Given the bitter partisan battles that accompany Supreme Court nominations, it's no surprise that conservative commentators have used out-of-context quotes from that speech to cast Sotomayor as a scary "reverse racist." http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/27/tucked_0527.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/27/tucked_0527.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Tue, 26 May 2009 19:17:32 EDT If Georgia's Republicans insist on a politics that is base and ugly and plays to the hateful side of the state's history, then they deserve to be called out for it. Since several of the GOP's candidates for governor have flirted with support for secession, they deserve the scorching denunciation they received earlier this week from David Poythress, a Democratic candidate for governor. "Four of the six Republican candidates recently said they would support Georgia seceding from the United States of America. http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/24/tucked_0524.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/24/tucked_0524.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Fri, 22 May 2009 18:57:13 EDT It's the season for graduations — for celebrating accomplishments, milestones and lessons learned. Whether kinsfolk have finished high school or seminary or kindergarten, families have gathered for food, drink and congratulations. But Atlanta rapper Clifford Harris Jr., whose stage name is T.I., is about to achieve a milestone less auspicious but equally important. On May 26, he will report to a federal prison in Arkansas to begin serving a sentence of a year and a day on weapons charges. The prison stint will give Harris (and his fans) yet another opportunity to master some very important lessons about observing the law, renouncing violence and serving as a respectable role model for your children. Unfortunately, those lessons are likely to go unlearned. I have little faith that a year in the federal pokey will change Harris' perspective or penchant for thuggery. Hardcore rap music and its attendant culture celebrate violence and lawbreaking, conferring "street creds" to those performers who have actually served time. In that perverse http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/20/tucked_0520.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2009/05/20/tucked_0520.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17 Tue, 19 May 2009 20:24:25 EDT Last year, Kevin D. Johnson, an Atlanta businessman, arrived home from his honeymoon to find that American Express had suddenly slashed his credit limit, despite Johnson's stellar repayment record and high credit rating. Among the reasons the financial services company gave was this: "Other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with American Express." Johnson was stunned to be penalized for patronizing places that deadbeats also like. He told Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Carrie Teegardin, "I understand the need for ... predictive analytics. But I think they have crossed the line." Johnson is among millions of abused credit card customers who have had their fill of deceptive practices, usury interest rates and arbitrary changes in the service contract. Complaints have reached the ears of Congress, which is poised to pass legislation prohibiting some of the worst practices. Consumers can expect, at the very least, to get ample notice of an imminent interest rate hike or a slashed credit limit since both House and Senate bills require better disclosure.