Liberals lay claim to Goldwater legacy

Tom Pauken is upset that some people are identifying positions taken by the late Arizona Republican Barry Goldwater as being liberal. A new documentary, Goldwater Girl, by Barry Goldwater's granddaughter CC Goldwater features interviews by the likes of Al Franken, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton in support of the argument his granddaughter makes that Barry Goldwater was "a kind of liberal."

Let's face it. Some of Senator Goldwater's positions were liberal. He supported a woman's right to choose abortion. He supported the right of gays to serve in the armed forces. In 1996, when hardline conservatives criticized Bob Dole, the Republican nominee for President, Senator Goldwater said to him, "We're the new liberals of the Republican Party. Can you imagine that?"

Mr Pauken wants to continue claiming Barry Goldwater as a conservative because he "believed in limited government, supported traditional values, and advocated a foreign policy guided by what was in America's national interest." Conservatives have won the war of words over such loaded terms, but liberals in fact believe in the same things.

• Limited government: separation of church and state, Constitutional limits on government's interference in speech and press, keeping government out of the bedroom.
• traditional values: justice, jobs, freedom from want, equality of opportunity, the belief that all men are created equal
• foreign policy based on national interest: the cooperation of free countries, working together in support of those everywhere who struggle to gain and keep human rights, leading to a peaceful and prosperous world in which our own domestic security and prosperity are ensured.

Mr Pauken might find more agreement that Senator Goldwater was a conservative in other highlights of his career. He supported Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) in leading the political witch hunts of the 1950s. He suggested using nuclear bombs to defoliate Vietnamese jungles and jokingly suggested that we "lob one into the men's room at the Kremlin." He voted against legislation guaranteeing civil rights for all Americans.

Personally, I don't mind that conservatives still lay claim to Barry Goldwater's legacy. On the whole, there's much in there that belongs where it is, buried in history. But perhaps it's time to quit fighting over labels, conservative versus liberal, and begin finding the good in both great political traditions. There's much to admire in a man who can entice both political parties to claim a piece of him as their own.

What the buyouts say

Carolyn Barta has stirred up a hornets' nest on DallasBlog.com by reporting on rumors of who in the Dallas Morning News newsroom is and isn't taking Belo up on offers of a buyout. Belo is downsizing to cut costs. Cuts are aimed at areas that don't fit with the new strategy to focus on local stories. So far, Ms Barta's blog entry has attracted 77 responses from readers, almost uniformly critical of the DMN. The exception is one from an anonymous reader with the alias of "Very Unofficial DMN Retort", which stirred things up all the more.

Now who can do a better jobs a company with millions to commit or a snarky little online blog like Front Burner that does nothing more than comment on what others write and chase celebrities at swimming pools. Do you really want to trust something like DallasBlog for news? Let's say it like it is - DallasBlog is nothing but a sophomoric effort by a small group of has-beens living off credentials they earned at the Dallas Morning News years ago and funded by God knows who (along with a couple of political has-beens). The Dallas Observer has one reporter (admittedly a good one) and a Blog produced by basically one person. D and the Observer are about entertainment and Dallas Blog is about bitterness. The Dallas Morning News is not concerned about competition from either.

Except for the last sentence, I think the anonymous poster has hit the mark.

Frontburner is snarky. It comments instead of reports, except for the occasional celebrity sightings. And occasional commotion visible from their office windows, which they ask readers to investigate. As for D Magazine itself, it's in a different market altogether than what a daily newspaper must be.

Unfair Park is indistinguishable from Frontburner. And the Dallas Observer itself hasn't been the same since Laura Miller and The Straight Dope were staples.

Dallas Blog is made up mostly of has-beens and wannabes. The wannabes are in turn snotty and defensive. Take, for example, Trey Garrison's several posts in just this one thread:

I think Jerome Weeks won't be missed.
...
I'm not going to name names but I can only think of a few current editorial board members worth keeping.
...
By the way, for any DMN insiders out there, why does Macarena Hernandez still have a job?
...
For has-beens and - I suppose in my case a "never-was" - we sure trumped the DMN on a number of bigger city issues. We're nine months old and growing. What's your excuse, DMN?
...
Oops. Here's the right URL for DallasCEO.

That last "Oops" captures Dallas Blog in a nutshell. It may have great potential, but it's an amateurish publication. It has the feel of something slapped together by a politician (Tom Pauken) and a reporter (Scott Bennett) who haven't a clue about the technology behind Web publishing. It shows.

Which brings us to that anonymous poster's final comment. Despite all the flaws of DMN's online rivals, you'd better believe that DMN is watching and worried. The future is online. If DMN doesn't figure it out, someone else will.

To help these Democrats, consider voting Republican

If the headline led you to expect some insight into just how voting Republican this fall will help end the Republican grip on political power, sorry. I borrowed the headline from the latest William Murchison column on DallasBlog.com. Mr Murchison goes on and on in the column, misrepresenting Democratic positions and defending Wal-Mart's low wages, without a hint how voting Republican helps Democrats or helps Wal-Mart employees earn a living wage.

Mr Murchison paints the Democrats as bashers of Wal-Mart for being "awful people who insist on undercharging for automobile tires and patio chairs." Of course, Democrats have nothing against Wal-Mart's low prices. The effort is to get Wal-Mart to share some of the billions in profits with its workers by paying them a living wage.

Mr Murchison says the Democrats don't have a solution. Sure, they do. One part of the solution is to raise the minimum wage, which hasn't been changed since 1997, the longest such period in American history. Another part of the solution is to provide affordable health care to the working poor.

Republicans control Congress. If they wanted to raise the minimum wage, it would pass in an instant with wide Democratic support. The fact it didn't pass in this last Congress is because Republicans cared more about tax cuts for smallest slice at the top of the wealth pyramid (e.g., cutting the estate tax, which doesn't affect over 99% of Americans). But in Mr Murchison's parallel universe, it's Democrats who are responsible for the failure of Congress to pass an increase in the minimum wage.

Mr Murchison gets it right when he says the answer is a stronger economy. And for that, the voters need to get rid of the Republicans in Congress and the White House who have squandered our budget surpluses, overseen ever-growing trade deficits and offshoring of American jobs, rising health care costs, and stagnant wages for the working poor.

To help these Republicans, consider voting them out of office, so they can go back to their districts, see the disaster they have foisted on America with their incompetent governance, and maybe learn how to do better the next time they control government.

Perry announces appraisal reform task force

My congratulations to Tom Pauken, named by Governor Rick Perry to head the Texas Task Force on Appraisal Reform, charged with making a recommendation for improving the tax appraisal process before January's session of the state legislature. On DallasBlog.com, Mr Pauken, publisher, has taken every opportunity to promote his belief that the appraisal process is broken. Now, he has a chance to shape the fix.

Let me offer Mr Pauken a few suggestions:

• Do not solve the problem by interfering with the free market. Artificially capping annual increases in appraisals would inevitably result in appraisals out of whack with selling prices and inequities between the appraised value of similar properties. Adopt such a solution and Texas will discover a few years down the road that the new system is just as broken as what it replaced.
• If you feel you must recommend a system that doesn't allow tax increases without a vote, then adjust tax rates downward rather than capping appraisal increases. If property values are rising faster than overall inflation, then automatically lower property tax rates to keep the total revenue in line with overall inflation and population growth. This removes any incentive for artificially increasing appraisals above what the market supports. Hard-working appraisal boards would be able to do their job fairly without the public assuming hikes in appraisals are a scam to raise more money. To raise more money, politicians would have to put a rate increase to the voters, giving the voters the leash on politicians that they want.
• Give appraisers the information they need to do their jobs. Make the selling prices of property a matter of public record, instead of a wild guessing game that leads to well-intentioned, but mistaken appraisals in too many cases.

Liberating education

Norris Archer Harrington decries the decline of liberal arts education in America. He dismisses the vocational programs at community colleges to train students to be court reporters, EMTs, or network administrators. "Garbage" in his opinion. He transfers to Thomas Aquinas College, a small Catholic liberal arts school, where he satisfies his thirst for truth and beauty by reading the original great works of science, literature and philosophy. What leads him in this direction? He says it's because:

I'm one of those curious people who believes that life is more than a chemical reaction. That man can be saved by beauty. That eternal truths exist and can be recognized. That we live not by bread alone. If we are nothing more than biological processes, then our lives have little meaning beyond avoiding discomfort. But if we have souls with eternal destinies, and if our actions and choices bear upon those destinies, suddenly it seems very important to nurture wisdom in all aspects of life.

You would think that someone who prizes truth and wisdom would understand the logical flaws of this argument.

There's no reason chemical and biological processes cannot lead to evolution of creatures that crave beauty, truth and wisdom. Perhaps if Mr Harrington spent more time studying the advances of science in the centuries and millennia since some of the great books were written, he'd understand how natural explanations for human behavior are entirely consistent with an appreciation for Shakespeare. I can think of no better way of "avoiding discomfort" in life than in such classics.

It does not follow that belief in an afterlife is necessary to nurture wisdom in all aspects of life. On the contrary, such beliefs sometime lead to murdering infidels in hope of gaining heavenly rewards. On the other hand, those who believe that one's soul is fleeting have more reason to value every moment, to use our time on Earth to pursue truth and beauty because there will be no hereafter to do so at leisure.

The great books can offer much of value to modern humans, but a good liberal arts undergraduate education should be followed up with some post-graduate work in the knowledge humans have gained in the last few hundred years. The combination can be enlightening, satisfying and even useful. And get some training as an EMT or court reporter, too, to provide some income. You'll need it to buy those great books.

Bill Due

It's time for an update to an old story, by Eric Celeste, published in the Dallas Observer on April 18, 2002. The article's subtitle: "Why did the DMN kill a story about political favoritism? Guess right and win!" The political favoritism in question involved Bill Hill's Dallas County District Attorney's office. The beneficiary of that alleged favoritism was Dallas philanthropist Bill Barrett. The suppressed story included a 3:30 AM call to 911 to report a case of domestic abuse between Mr Barrett and his socialite wife Angela. Embarrassingly, the husband was the caller and alleged victim. So, why would the DMN kill such a juicy story? Eric Celeste explains:

Bill Barrett has for the past four years made a $50,000 kickoff contribution to the annual Dallas Morning News Charities drive. He is scheduled to give another $50K for next year's drive as well. What's that? You think that, ethically speaking, financial contributions to the charitable arm of the newspaper shouldn't matter when considering whether the editors would run a story that could displease Mr. Barrett?
[Giggle]
You lose.

Why is it time for an update? Because Bill Barrett passed away recently. The Dallas Morning News wrote a very flattering obituary, which not only failed to mention the domestic abuse episode, but failed to mention that Mr Barrett had even been married to Angela Barrett.

That didn't escape the notice of Cindy Heinemann, Frisco, who wrote this letter to the DMN:

I am shocked this entire article was written without mentioning Mr. Barrett's loving and caring wife, Angela, who shared his philanthropy for more than 20 years. What shallow and small relatives would not mention the woman he chose to spend his senior years with after his first wife's passing? Angela may not have been liked, but Mr. Barrett loved her, and she should have at least been included in his obituary.

Which, in turn elicited this letter to the DMN from Mary Barrett-Spies, Longview, daughter of Bill Barrett:

My family was correct in the published obituary for my father, Bill Barrett, mentioning family first.
Special recognitions with friends are then listed. Since my father was not married and had not been for more than a year, the information was correct. There was no marriage of 20 years to the mentioned party.

"Mentioned party?" Does she mean Angela Barrett? So just why did the DMN kill that story about political favoritism all those years ago? And why does it continue to? And which editor let Cindy Heinemann's letter slip through to publication? Was it subversion or cluelessness? And just how many years was Bill Barrett married to "the mentioned party"? And how many years would it take to get your name itself mentioned in a man's obituary by Dallas' only daily newspaper? Like I said, it's time for an update to that old story.

WE WON! ... a Pyrrhic victory?

Michael Davis of Dallas Progress is crowing today that "WE WON!". The Dallas City Plan Commission denied a request for zoning changes to allow the construction of townhomes on South Marsalis Avenue. He says the planned $150,000 townhomes are overpriced and predicts they will not sell and will be turned into rental slum properties. Or not. Because he also condemns the planned development of townhomes as "possible gentrification." In other words, the proposed development is damned whether it fails or whether it succeeds. Instead, he says "this neighborhood is starving for affordable, single family housing."

Sadly, I wonder just what was won. Sure, the threat of townhomes is (temporarily) gone. But are the affordable, single family houses any closer? Or is this neighborhood of senior citizens, living in their aging $40-50,000 houses, just locking itself into a path of long, slow decay? Has Michael Davis just helped the neighborhood turn its back on the good because it isn't the perfect? And left the neighborhood with nothing?

Islamic fanatics will sacrifice everything for amoral cause

There are many well-meaning people who believe that America and the West are not fighting a war on terror, but rather engaged in an epic struggle between Islam and every other faith on the planet. Linda Chavez is one columnist who tries to make that case, using questionable assumptions and drawing faulty conclusions to do so.

Ms Chavez states without hesitation that the goal of terrorists is to convert the infidels or kill them. Yet President Ahmadinejad of Iran doesn't speak of converting Jews. He speaks of resettling them in Germany or Alaska.

Osama bin Laden doesn't speak of converting Christians. He speaks of evicting them from Muslim lands. Osama offered the US and the West a "long term truce" if only Americans would quit fighting Muslims on Muslim land.

Terrorism historically grew out of Arab efforts to evict Jews from the Middle East. The presence of Western oil companies in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf was another unwelcome intrusion of "infidels" into Muslim lands. Terrorism escalated after the American military itself set up bases in Saudi Arabia. Islamic terrorists don't want to convert us as much as they just want us gone from their lands.

Ms Chavez then criticizes Americans (blame America first?). In her mind, instead of tracking down terrorists, "we worry that we might be infringing on their civil liberties." The worry is not so much for the terrorists but that we might be infringing on our own civil liberties. The dragnet of the Patriot Act and the secret NSA surveillance programs is so broad that innocent Americans are inevitably tangled up in it, not just terrorists. Ms Chavez may not mind sacrificing her own liberties to fight Islamic fanatics, but she has no right to speak for all Americans. One of the first Americans, Ben Franklin, put it this way 200 years ago, "Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."

Ms Chavez finally gets it right in her conclusion, "Our best hope for victory may well be that radical Islam, like the Soviet Union, will begin to collapse from within." The best way to speed that day along is for the US to quit invading Muslim countries trying to spread American-style democracy. All we do is rally Muslims against us and create chaos, out of which more hatred and violence are born.

Control-Alt-Delete?

For those who may not know him, William Murchison was the longtime, pompous, right-wing political columnist for the Dallas Morning News. He's now an occasional, pompous, right-wing political columnist for DallasBlog.com, where they apparently allow him to double as a humor columnist. Here's his contribution to a thread in DallasBlog.com about the upcoming Belo buyouts and layoffs at the Dallas Morning News:

"Dunno: I'm an incompetent computer typist and may have cut him accidentally.reby, wiht gratitude and admiration, add him to the list,"

P.S. Of the dozen or so stories on the front page of DallasBlog.com, most have attracted no comments. One has four. One has five. The story on what's happening at Belo has drawn 32 comments, so far. Apparently, Mr Murchison is not the only ex-DMN staffer who now hangs out online at DallasBlog.com. Write about what you know and all that.

Did rally unleash new political power?

Did last April's immigration "megamarch" in Dallas unleash new political power?

Frank Trejo, in the Dallas Morning News, says no, at least not yet:

The effect so far on voter registrations, however, has not been as dramatic. Bruce Sherbet, Dallas County elections administrator, said about 1,500 new voters have registered since April. That's fairly normal for a year without a presidential election, he said. Dr. Cal Jillson [a political scientist at Southern Methodist University] said it's implausible to believe that a march will cause any group to suddenly take political control of the city.

On the other hand, Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer says... well, also no.

Trejo interviewed Sherbet but buried his remarks and went with a higher figure, 1,500 registrations, which I happen to know was misrepresented in the story. Sherbet does not believe those 1,500 came from Domingo Domingo [sic]. Those 1,500 are par for the course, the number you'd expect anyway for this period of time.

They both say 1,500, right? The both say that's about normal, right? So, where's the disagreement? According to Mr Schutze, the DMN story "betrays such a fear of the truth and its repercussions that the end product winds up being simply incomprehensible." Huh? Mr Schutze admits that he's "not saying Trejo contradicted the truth." Apparently, then, truth is not Mr Schutze's priority. Dismissing the impact of the march on Dallas politics is.

Mr Trejo reports the facts -- the march had no immediate impact on voter rolls. Mr Schutze wants to wave the facts in the face of state representative Domingo Garcia -- the march was a "dud" that "meant zip". That kind of in-your-face language may sell papers (which the Dallas Observer technically is), but it's "piss poor" journalism in its own way.

That didn't stop Trey Garrison at DallasBlog.com and Tim Rogers at FrontBurner from throwing kisses Mr Schutze's way. Wick Allison then weighs in with an "I told you so" and a link to a June story in D Magazine that explains the demographic reason why April's march may eventually be seen as a turning point in Dallas' history, regardless of how many new voters registered that day. It doesn't matter that Hispanics vote in lower percentages than other groups. With population trends as they are, Mr Allison says "the handwriting is on the voting booth curtain."

Mr Allison doesn't let on that his story more closely aligns with Mr Trejo's piece in the DMN than it does with anything Jim Schutze, Trey Garrison or Tim Rogers had to say on the subject.

Dribble drabble redux

Submitted without need for further comment... two posts this morning by Tim Rogers on FrontBurner:

9:25 AM:
"DALLAS COUNTY SYPHILIS CASES ON THE RISE
Says so here. Paul, you might want to get that itch checked out."

11:18 AM:
"GORDON KEITH DRIBBLE DRABBLE
I don't know why Belo lets this hack continue to write his column every week. Worse than Steve Blow. Never funny."

Like father, like son?

George H.W. Bush made two big political mistakes, one domestically, one in foreign policy, that arguably cost him re-election in 1992. One was his compromise with Democrats on a tax package designed to deal with the growing federal debt. The other was his decision not to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein after pushing the Iraqis out of Kuwait. When he left office, the early judgment of history was that his was a mediocre or failed Presidency.

His son, George W. Bush, took office in 2001 determined not to repeat those mistakes. And he hasn't. He has made even bigger mistakes of his own. W's insistence on passing big tax cuts has turned looming budget surpluses into deficits as far as can be seen. W's invasion of Iraq has led to thousands of dead American soldiers, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, and an ever-worsening civil war in Iraq, Hamas in power in the West Bank, Hezbollah emboldened in Lebanon, and an Iran insistent on developing nuclear weapons.

Carl Leubsdorf, Washington Bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News, points out the major irony in this case. By determining not to repeat his father's failures, the son has "created so many problems that he will end up making his father's presidency look that much better."

With hindsight, Americans are beginning to appreciate the benefits of the father's prudent foreign policy compared to the son's adventurist foreign policy. The father never looked more worthy of a place on Mount Rushmore than he does after six years of his son's Presidency.

P.S. Mr Leubsdorf's job title, bureau chief, must paint him with a red bulls-eye in the current downsizing move underway at the DMN, with the stated intention of focusing on local content.

Democracy nonsense

Rod Dreher, in The DallasMorningViews blog, says he doesn't believe Islam is "reconcilable with liberal democracy (by which I mean not only free and fair elections, but religious freedom, equality before the law, a free press, and separation of church and state)." To believe this, he must be turning a blind eye to the millions of Muslims who live in the United States, freely practicing their religion and simultaneously believing in liberal democracy, without contradiction.

Mr Dreher asks someone to show him a form of Islam that makes sharia optional? Again, how about the Islam practiced by millions of Americans, which makes no attempt at all to force sharia on non-believers? The same holds true in Australia, where recently Peter Costello, the second highest-ranking government official, invited Australian Muslims to leave the country, saying "If you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you." A Muslim reference group, appointed by the Prime Minister himself because of their leadership in the Australian Muslim community, prepared a response saying, "Nobody has suggested that we implement Sharia law."

Not only is Islam reconcilable with liberal democracy, so is Christianity, despite centuries of history that might imply otherwise. The Spanish conquest of America, the enslavement of Africans in North America for two centuries, and the Holocaust in Europe, all were committed by supposedly Christian powers, often using Christianity as pretext. Islamic history has its stains as well, including events happening today. But there's no reason to believe that a century hence, two centuries hence, the situation could change, much as it did for most of Christianity, at least most of the time.

The future shape of The Dallas Morning News

Carolyn Barta of Dallas Blog reports that the DMN plans to "keep metro, business and sports at present strength but reduce lifestyles, arts and entertainment, some tabloids (excepting Taste and House & Garden) and bureaus." She asks, "Are they trying to cure the ills of declining circulation and ad revenues by offering....less?"

I suspect they are not trying to cure the patient as much as they are trying to delay an inevitable death. Or at least an inevitable mutation into something much less grand than what we think of when we think of the traditional major metropolitan daily newspaper.

There's a retailing concept called the long tail, popularized by Chris Anderson. He explains the concept in a nuthshell:

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

The DMN is a victim of the long tail. The cost of newsprint prohibits them from publishing stories or whole sections that don't appeal to a broad base of subscribers. Online ventures like Dallas Blog, on the other hand, don't operate under the same constraints. Because disk space and bandwidth are essentially free, online publishers can fill their Web site with an infinite number of stories that appeal to only a few readers each, growing their readership one small niche at a time.

Of course, the DMN can do the same. Their strategy seems to be to conserve cash to survive long enough to build readership of their growing online presence. The proliferation of DMN blogs is evidence of this strategy. But it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Whether the DMN pulls off this reinvention of itself is far from a sure thing. In its favor is the fact that many of the writers for the upstart Web-based competition like Dallas Blog are "old dogs" from the DMN itself. So, maybe the DMN's chances are not such a long shot after all.

Mel isn't the only sinner

Dallas Morning News | Rod Dreher:

“Yes, Mel [Gibson] was wrong, said my friend [J.], but consider that he was raised by a Holocaust-denying kook of a father. Could either of us, J. went on, say with complete certainty that the racism we grew up around had been entirely eradicated from our souls? We think we've put that all behind us, said J., but is it not possible that under the right conditions, either of us right-thinking Southern white boys could shock ourselves by what came out of our mouths – and our hearts?”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Mr Dreher calls Mel Gibson a "fellow Christian" and admits loving and defending The Passion of the Christ against charges of anti-Semitism. Now that Mr Gibson's anti-Semitism is on display for all to see, Mr Dreher is suffering a severe case of buyer's remorse. He struggles to come up with explanations for Mr Gibson's anti-Semitism, reasons that will defend Mr Gibson's Passion itself from the stain of anti-Semitism.

So, according to Mr Dreher, we're all racist at heart. We're all capable of uttering equally ugly things. Mr Dreher pairs Mr Gibson and his drunken rant against Jews with a Louisiana woman who, from a sense of white Southern paternalism, helps rescue a local African-American church from possible bankruptcy. What the heck?

Mr Dreher says the woman should be forgiven because she isn't aware that her paternalism is a form of racism. And then he somehow jumps to the conclusion that just maybe Mel Gibson isn't aware that it might be racist to say "F#@*ing Jews...The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." That's one enormous benefit of the doubt. Even if Mr Gibson were somehow completely clueless about what racism is, how can Mr Dreher even suggest some kind of rough equivalence between well-intentioned paternalism and virulent hatred?

We all may have faults, but I deny that we all share Mel Gibson's level of bigotry. And if I ever say anything that reveals the faults that my lie deep inside me, I hope Mr Dreher and others will speak up and call me on it. And not find excuses for unacceptable behavior just because the speaker directed a movie that I am now forced to see through new eyes... and maybe not like what I see quite as much as I did before.

Loss for Centrists

Dallas Morning News | Editorials:

“It's still a shame to see a statesman like Mr. Lieberman brought low like this. The most admirable thing about the man is his willingness to buck his party to stand up for what he believes is right.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Spoken like a Republican. Of course Senator Lieberman was brought low. He "bucked" his party. That the DMN editorial board expects Democratic voters to back a candidate that "bucks" their political wishes is wishful thinking... by Republicans.

The DMN is right that one can't assume what happened at the polls in Connecticut will play out exactly the same way nationwide in November. But the DMN is flat out wrong to ignore the significance of Connecticut. You can bet politicians of both parties all across the country are plotting much more careful positions on the Iraq War because of the lessons of Connecticut. The DMN alternative, whistling past the graveyard, is not good political strategy this election.

The DMN is also wrong to say that if Senator Lieberman wins election as an independent, the Democrats lose a vote in the Senate. The DMN has already praised Senator Lieberman for voting his conscience, not his party. So, the Democrats have no vote to lose there, especially on issues like the Iraq War, where Senator Lieberman already showed himself to be a reliable Republican vote. Senator Lieberman has made it clear he'll side with the Democrats for control of the Senate, so there'll be no advantage GOP if Senator Lieberman keeps his seat, even as an independent.

In the end, the DMN's praise of Senator Lieberman for "his ability to think for himself" really boils down to his taking positions that agree with the editorial board's own politics (including one particular editorial board member's own scorn for Hollywood).

On throwing the bums out

DallasBlog.com | William Murchison:

“It would have been hard to get rid of Castro and to clean up after him. Yet is it really doubtful, all these years later, what a gain to peace and freedom his political demise would have been. There would have been no missile showdown with the Soviet Union; no Kennedy assassination; no Cuban-inspired attempt to communize Chile; no bloody guerrilla wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador; no political prisons for freedom-minded Cubans; no flight of Cubans to the United States; no Mariel refugee crisis; no overturned boats and drowned refugees between Cuba and Florida; no Elian Gonzalez mess; no...
"Action has its undoubted costs and dangers; just like non-action, when you get right down to it.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Fidel Castro may have been involved in many of the bad things that happened in Latin America over the last 40 years, but he was hardly solely responsible. It is naive to assume that if he had been neatly taken out in 1959 then Latin America would have seen no other dictatorships, coups or guerrilla movements.

It's also naive to believe that an invasion of Cuba was a straightforward task for the US military or that the assassination of Castro would have ended the Cuban revolution or that ... what, Cubans would have lived happily ever after under a Batista restoration?

The history of that era has a not-so-shining example of how difficult it is for the US military to impose American style democracy on an indigenous revolution -- the Vietnam War. And, now, in the 2000s, we have another not-so-shining example -- the Iraq War -- which teaches us that deposing a dictator, rather than resulting in a flowering of democracy, sometimes results in sectarian violence or civil war, regional instability, and increased anti-American sentiment around the world. Only through a willful ignorance of history can one wistfully regret that President Kennedy didn't go to war against Cuba in 1961.

Mark Your Calendars, Kids: Next year, school won't interrupt summer

Dallas Morning News | Editorials:

“Next year's Aug. 27 start date will be a welcome change. Students won't lose out on any instruction days, but summer vacation actually will extend through the summer.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

As if those August vacation days won't come at the expense of June vacation days. This isn't rocket science, people. If you keep the same number of instruction days, in-service days, holidays, etc., then summer vacation can be only so long. Extend it later in August and that necessarily delays the start of summer vacation the next year. Under either the old calendar or the new, there will still be a lot of hot summer days that students will have to spend in an air-conditioned classroom learning. There are worse things.

In another editorial this same day, The Dallas Morning News throws its support behind better math education. Perhaps we can start by having students count how many June vacation days the state legislature is taking away from them in order to award them with all those extra August vacation days. Perhaps the DMN editorial board can go back to school for that lesson, too. TANSTAAFL.

Governors object to "federalizing" National Guard

DallasBlog.com | Tom Pauken:

“Meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, the nation's governors voiced their opposition to the Bush Administration's proposal to take over control of state National Guard troops in the case of a natural disaster or terrorist threats. ... Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas "told reporters that the move to shift control of the Guard to the president during national emergencies 'violates 200 years of American history' and is symptomatic of a larger federal effort to make states no more than 'satellites of the national government'", according to the Washington Post.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

After a decade of Republican government, the cries from Republicans against the "increasing centralization of power in the federal government" continue. How long can Republicans continue to run as outsiders, as challengers of the status quo in Washington? It looks like Governor Huckabee (R-AR), for one, is trying to make it at least one more election cycle.

To his credit, Governor Huckabee did respond to Project VoteSmart's 2002 Arkansas Gubernatorial National Political Awareness Test when he last ran for governor. Voters should demand that all candidates fill out this issues survey.

Separating Art from Artist: Gibson's 'Passion' still speaks for itself

Dallas Morning News | Editorials:

“The personal life and beliefs of an artist help explain a work of art, but they don't define it. The Passion of the Christ is the same film today – no more and no less anti-Semitic – as it was before Mr. Gibson's grievous lapse last week. ”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Yes, the film is the same film as before. And now that its producer/director has publicly revealed his anti-Semitism, those who saw anti-Semitism in the film before this incident now have another reason to believe that they were not imagining things then. And those that failed to see anti-Semitism before now have to at least question whether they perhaps failed to see something that was in the film all along.

It's like young students in 2006 reading Arthur Miller's The Crucible and seeing only a straightforward play about Salem witch trials. Then, teach them about McCarthyism in the US in the 1950s and watch them see the play in an entirely new light. Same play, but totally different appreciation about what it's all about. Fans of Gibson's 'Passion' who fail to see that film in a new light after its director's anti-Semitic outburst are simply blind.

Postscript: Rod Dreher, who wrote the editorial on behalf of The Dallas Morning News, defended himself on the paper's blog against a reader who accused Gibson of being no different from Hitler. Mr Dreher called this the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy. Well... no. That fallacy is equating something with Hitler because of a shared trait unrelated to the evil that was Hitler. (You drive a Volkswagen Beetle. That was Hitler's car. Therefore, you are evil.) In the case at hand -- anti-Semitic remarks -- I'd say Gibson's rant was pretty much something Hitler might say. The comparison is apt. That doesn't make Gibson another Hitler, but they do share at least one evil in common.

President should name Powell his Middle East envoy

DallasBlog.com | Tom Pauken:

“Events are spinning out of control in the Middle East with the possibility of a wider war looming and the potential for major regime change in the Arab world which would further radicalize the Middle East. The time has come for President Bush to take bold and decisive action to bring hostilities to a halt in that region while sending a signal that the United States is willing to be an honest broker once again in the quest to secure a permanent peace in the Middle East.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

President Bush is not interested in negotiating peace in the Middle East. President Bush is interested in total victory in the war on terror. No cease fire. No negotiated peace. Only victory. In his view (as expressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) the current fighting is not so much a bad thing as the necessary "birth pangs of a new Middle East."

For President Bush to adopt Mr Pauken's recommendations would be an admission of failure, an admission that victory in the war on terror is not achievable through military means. He's not one to admit failure, in general, and certainly not in this instance.

But Mr Pauken is right about one thing. Expecting the President to listen to Mr Pauken's proposal is a "pipe dream."

Israel must prevail against radicals

Dallas Morning News | Rod Dreher:

“If the Israelis lose this war against Hezbollah – and anything short of Hezbollah's virtual annihilation will be taken as a loss by the Arab world – the existence of the Jewish state will be in question.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Mr Dreher uses a thousand year book of Psalms dug up from an Irish bog to illustrate how old the Arab/Israeli struggle is. But he misses the significance of that fact. Today, a thousand years later, Israel exists. And so do its Arab enemies. For Israel, there is no such thing as victory. Or rather, for Israel, survival is victory.

Israel must think in terms of survival, not annihilation of its enemies, even Hezbollah. Israel isn't going to annihilate its enemies by its current invasion of Lebanon. Any more than it annihilated its enemies in its previous wars and occupation of Lebanon. Any more than the US annihilated terrorism in its invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Other opinions appearing on the DMN's editorial and op/ed pages the same day Mr Dreher's viewpoint was published understand the situation better. His own editorial board explains, "Israel's original goal was to cripple Hezbollah, an outcome that some factions within the country now suggest is not possible militarily. The reality is that a search for Hezbollah can't be waged effectively or indefinitely from the air without massive civilian casualties. And the prospect of Israeli ground forces going door-to-door to root out Hezbollah is a prescription for radicalizing Lebanon's government and widening the conflict to Syria and Iran."

It's not in Israel's interest to widen the war. If anything is a threat to annihilate Israel, it would be a nuclear attack launched by a madman in Iran. Like the US before it in Iraq, Israel is learning that it cannot win a war on terror militarily. Military force can play a role, but what comes after must also be planned and executed well. Without an exit strategy in Iraq, the US finds its strategic position in the world worsening due to its reliance on its military. Now, Israel finds itself facing the same threat, unless it can find its own exit strategy from Lebanon.

Rami G. Khouri, in another viewpoints piece in the DMN, explains what that exit strategy will look like. "The elements of a diplomatic solution are obvious to all parties: a cease-fire, an exchange of prisoners and an international force to separate the parties and cement the cease-fire."

Sometimes, a ceasefire, even if not victory, is the best you can hope for. It means survival. Stubbornly fighting on for victory only increases the likelihood of total defeat.