Category Archives: Today on our opinion pages

Will Sanford take next step, and actually WORK with Rex?

Check out Cindi’s column today. It seems Gov. Sanford was somewhat taken aback to learn that he and Supt. of Ed. Jim Rex have some reform goals in common — this, despite the fact that I (and others) have made that point to him since right after last year’s election. Here’s video of my asking the governor about this in January.

Unfortunately, the governor has put all his education-related energies into the effort to pay people to desert the public schools, rather than into making those schools better.

Like Cindi, I, too, am encouraged that — thanks to his laudable efforts to get his hands around the budget process — the governor has at long last had a conversation with Mr. Rex regarding these matters. (It’s also great to see the first lady working with Mr. Rex on another front.) He asked Mr. Rex whether he would actively advocate some of these reforms. What I want to know is, will the governor break precedent and do something he never did with Inez Tenenbaum, and has failed for a year to do with Mr. Rex — seize upon areas of agreement, and get some worthwhile things done.

As you know, we believe that the governor should appoint the education superintendent, and have direct control over how that half of the state budget is spent. So, to hear him tell it, does the governor. But up to now, he has stiffened resistance to that idea among those who care about education by swinging back and forth between negligent apathy and outright hostility toward public schools. It’s time he helped the cause of government restructuring — not to mention the crucial cause of universal education — by showing he can be a force for positive change.

Less than six degrees of Harry Dent

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All right, I didn’t know Harry Dent personally. So I urge you to read the op-ed piece we ran today from Bob McAlister, who did. We’re considering other submissions about him now.

But this is South Carolina, and everybody in South Carolina touches everybody else. We don’t have to play "Six Degrees" around here, even with Kevin Bacon. We are usually no more than a degree or two away. That’s true even of someone like me who didn’t grow up here, except in the summers when I was with my grandparents in Bennettsville and Surfside. All you need is to have your roots here, and three-fourths of my family tree grows out of our poor soil (my father’s father’s people are from Maryland).

Harry Dent — the one who died last week, not the son — was my Dad’s fraternity brother at PC. In fact, in keeping with his pursuit of worldly superlatives in his early life, he was the president of the fraternity. My Dad wasn’t close to him, and even wondered how he ended up among the Pikes, since he wasn’t a jock. Dad was there on a tennis scholarship in the days when the Blue Hose were a tennis powerhouse, and most everybody in the fraternity played ball of some sort. (Dad informs me that his football-playing brothers were in the "smart" positions; the linemen belonged to Sigma Nu.)

But I had never heard of him when I left Hawaii for my one semester at USC in 1971. I first heard of Mr. Dent one day in Prof. Dolan’s world history class. A student had asked the prof during class whether a certain historical situation he was describing (I forget what) didn’t have an interesting parallel with the Nixon Administration. The prof had brushed the question aside. After class, the questioner went up to the prof and asked why he hadn’t answered the question. He said, "I’m not answering a question like that with Harry Dent’s kid sitting there in the class."

I don’t know which son that was because I don’t remember his first name. But after having him thus pointed out, I made the connection when it turned out he lived on the same floor of the Bates House — which was brand-spanking new that semester — with several friends of mine I referred to collectively as the Bates House Gang. (I lived in the honeycombs, with the hard core.)

Once after I came to work at the paper, Harry Dent came to see us about some worthy cause or other he was promoting, and I got to chat with him briefly. I can’t remember now whether he already knew of our connection (the one through my Dad) or not.

One more thing: Whenever his name has come up, Dad has always referred to him as "Harry Shuler" — first name and middle name. I asked him why the other day. He said he didn’t know why; he just always had.

I guess it’s kind of a South Carolina thing.

Where to find the income tax comparisons

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You can find the state-by-state income tax comparison by S.C. Chief Economist Bill Gillespie that Cindi Scoppe wrote about in her column today by following this link. If that doesn’t work, you can go here and select State Individual Income Tax Comparisons for Tax Year 2005 on the left.

And here’s the draft of a less-complex analysis from the state treasurer’s office.

That’s all. Now you can go back to looking at fun stuff.

Budget and Control Board lawsuit

Obama’s right about Pakistan. But who would follow?

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
BARACK OBAMA was right to threaten to invade Pakistan in order to hit al-Qaida, quite literally, where it lives. And as long as we’re on this tack, remind me again why it is that we’re not at war with Iran.
OK, OK, I know the reasons: Our military is overextended; the American people lack the appetite; the nutball factor is only an inch deep in Iran, and once you get past Ahmadinejad and the more radical mullahs the Iranian people aren’t so bad, but they’d get crazy quick if we attacked, and so forth.
I can also come up with reasons not to invade Pakistan, or even to talk about invading Pakistan. We’ve heard them often enough. Pakistan is (and say this in reverent tones) a sovereign country; Pervez Musharraf is our “friend”; we need him helping us in the War on Terror; he is already politically weak and this could do him in; he could be replaced by Islamists sufficiently radical that they would actively support Osama bin Laden and friends, rather than merely fail to look aggressively enough to find them; fighting our way into, and seeking a needle in, the towering, rocky haystacks of that region is easier said than done, and on and on.
But when you get down to it, it all boils down to the reason I mentioned in passing in the first instance — Americans lack the appetite. So with a long line of people vying to be our new commander in chief, it’s helpful when one of them breaks out of the mold of what we might want to hear, and spells out a real challenge before us.
Most of us believe that the baddest bad guys in this War on Terror have been hiding in, and more relevantly operating from, the remote reaches of western Pakistan ever since they slipped through our fingers in 2001.
The diplomatic and strategic delicacy that the Bush administration (contrary to its image) has demonstrated with regard to the generalissimo in Pakistan has been something to behold. Now we see this guy we have done so much, by our self-restraint, to build up on the verge of collapse. We could end up with the crazy clerics anyway, or at least a surrender to, or sharing of power with, Benazir Bhutto.
But even if all the conditions were right abroad — even if the mountains were leveled and a new regime in Islamabad sent our Army an engraved invitation along with Mapquest directions to bin Laden’s cave — we’d still have the problem of American political shyness.
Same deal with Iran. In the past week a senior U.S. general announced that elite Iranian troops are in Iraq training Shiite militias in how to better kill Americans — and Sunnis, of course.
So it is that the United States is asking the United Nations to declare the Revolutionary Guard Corps — less a military outfit than a sort of government-sanctioned Mafia family, with huge legit covers in pumping oil, operating ports and manufacturing pharmaceuticals — a terrorist organization.
What is the response of the Revolutionary Guards to all this? Well, they’re not exactly gluing halos to their turbans. The head of the Guard Corps promised that “America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future.”
General Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted in an Iranian newspaper as adding, “We will never remain silent in the face of US pressure and we will use our leverage against them.”
And the United States is engaged in debate with other “civilized” nations over what names we will call these thugs. The world’s strongest nation — its one “indispensable nation,” to quote President Clinton’s secretary of state — ought to be able to work up a more muscular response than that. If we hadn’t gained a recent reputation for shyness, all we’d really have to do with those muscles is flex them.
The one thing I liked about George W. Bush was that he was able to convince the world’s bad guys (and a lot of our friends, too, but you can’t have everything) that he was crazy enough to cross borders to go after them, if they gave him half an excuse. This worked, as long as the American people were behind him.
If only the next president were able to project similar willingness to act, and be credible about it. A saber rattled by such a leader can put a stop to much dangerous nonsense in the world.
But does the will exist in the American electorate? Not now, it doesn’t. When Obama said his tough piece, the nation sort of patted its charismatic prodigy on his head and explained that he was green and untested, and was bound to spout silly things now and then. (Rudy Giuliani, to his credit, said Obama was right. Others tut-tutted over the “rookie mistake.”)
While we’re thinking about who’s going to lead the United States, maybe we’d better think about whether America will follow a leader who says what ought to be said — whether it’s on Iraq, Pakistan or Iran, or energy policy. Will we follow a president who tells us we should increase the price of gasoline rather than moaning about how “high” it is? How about a president who says we’re going to have to pay more for less in Social Security benefits in the future?
Winning in Iraq and chasing down bin Laden are not necessarily either/or alternatives. This nation is large enough, rich enough and militarily savvy enough to field a much larger, more versatile force. Can you say “draft”? Well, actually, no — within the context of American politics with a presidential election coming up, you can’t. Not without being hooted down.
That crowd of candidates is vying to lead a crippled giant. And the giant, sitting there fecklessly munching junk food and watching “reality” TV, can only blame himself for his condition.

Sam Brownback of Kansas: The Beatific Conservative

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
TO SAM BROWNBACK of Kansas, a “kinder, gentler” America is more than just a line from a speech by Peggy Noonan. It’s about who he is, what he believes. It’s about the kind of America he would like to lead.
The bumper-sticker take on Mr. Brownback is that he’s the Christian Conservative in the GOP presidential field — or one of them, anyway. But in his case, we’re talking actual Christianity, as in the Beatitudes.
Or maybe we’re talking Micah 6:8 — as president, he says he would act justly, love mercy and walk humbly.
That’s what drew Columbia businessman Hal Stevenson, a board member and former chairman of the Palmetto Family Council, to the Brownback camp. He was disillusioned by “some of the so-called ‘Christian Right… I was looking for someone who exhibits, and walks the walk that they talk, and that’s a rare thing in politics.”
When Sen. Brownback met with our editorial board Wednesday, I was impressed as well. I was struck by how interesting things can be when you get off the path beaten by national TV news and the covers of slick magazines. You find a guy who brings “Christian” and “conservative” together in ways that belie our common political vocabulary.
Sure, he’s adamantly pro-life. But for him, that means being “whole life” as well — “Life’s sacred in the womb, but I think it’s also sacred in Darfur.” He’s just as concerned about genocide or starvation or slave traffic in Africa or North Korea as about abortion clinics in Peoria. Did he get there, as a Catholic convert, via the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life?” No — he explains that initially, he was more influenced by “the great theologian Bono.”
This sort of atypical association plays out again and again. His plan for Iraq is the same as Joe Biden’s, quite literally. (You know Joe Biden — the Democrat who has campaigned in South Carolina the longest and hardest, the one who’s arguably the best-qualified candidate in that field, but you don’t hear about him much on TV? Yeah, that Joe Biden….) Their bill would partition the country more along the lines of the old Ottoman Empire.
I have some doubts about that plan, but let’s suppose it worked, and we achieved some sort of stasis in Iraq. What about the next crisis, and the next one after that? What about Sudan, Iran, North Korea? What is America’s proper stance toward the world?
“I think we’ve got to walk around the world wiser and more humble,” he said. It’s an answer you might expect from Jimmy Carter, or a flower-bedecked pacifist at an antiwar vigil. Sure, the true conservative position, from Pat Buchanan to George Will, has been one of aversion to international hubris. But Sam Brownback carries it off without a tinge of either fascism or pomposity, and that sets him apart.
“Africa’s moving. Latin America is moving,” he said. “That’s where I’m talking about walking wiser and humbler. The first step in Latin America is going to be to go there and just listen.” Why is it, we should ask ourselves, “that a Chavez can come forward with his old, bad ideas, and win elections?”
“People in Latin America are saying, my quality of life has not improved.” And as a result, they’re willing to go with a dictator. “I think we need to go there and say, what is it we can do to help these economies grow…. It’s our big problem with Mexico and immigration.”
Back to Africa: “This is a place where America’s goodness can really make a big difference to a lot of people in the world, and it would be in our long-term vital and strategic interest.”
Asked about domestic issues, he cites “rebuilding the family” as his top concern. That may sound like standard, right-off-the-shelf Christian Right talk. But he comes to it more via Daniel Patrick Moynihan than James Dobson. He said he’s had it with beating his head against the brick hearts of Hollywood producers, and draws an analogy to smoking: Sure, people knew there was a connection between cigarettes and their nagging coughs, but Big Tobacco had room to dissemble until a direct, scientific line was drawn between their product and lung cancer.
Just as the government now puts out unemployment statistics, he would have it gather and release data on out-of-wedlock childbirth, marriages ending in divorce, and the empirically demonstrable connections between ubiquitous pornography and a variety of social pathologies. He’d put the data out there, and let society decide from there how to react. But first, you need the data.
His second domestic issue is energy (push electric cars) and his third is health care (he would “end deaths to cancer in 10 years”). He’s a conservative, but by no means one who wants government to butt out of our lives.
“Humility, as a nation or as individuals, is an effective thing,” Mr. Stevenson said in explaining his support for Sen. Brownback. “It’s the right thing, and it’s also a Christian principle.”
But that doesn’t mean you don’t take action. The Kansan summed up his attitude on many issues, foreign and domestic, in describing his reaction to Darfur: “Well you look at that, and you know that’s something that ought to be addressed… I mean, you’re the most powerful nation in the world… you can’t learn about these things and then say, well, I guess I’m just not going to do anything about it.”
Well, some could. But it reflects to Sam Brownback’s credit that he says he could not.

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Listen to Zeke Stokes

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For a whole other perspective on John Edwards, be sure to read Zeke Stokes’ letter on today’s editorial page. For you lazy types, I reproduce it here:

John Edwards
is genuine, caring

During the first half of this year, I was privileged to work with Sen. John Edwards, traveling throughout the United States as he and his wife, Elizabeth, began this campaign for the White House. I have spent hours in cars and on planes with him. I have witnessed him in front of crowds and behind closed doors. And I can tell you without reservation that Brad Warthen misjudged him and painted an inaccurate picture of him in his column Tuesday (“Why I see John Edwards as a big phony”).
John and Elizabeth Edwards are two of the most caring and genuine people I have met in public life, and they have made it their life’s mission to improve the lives of people like so many of those in rural Lee County, where I grew up, and all across South Carolina and the country.
While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are seizing the limelight, John Edwards is seizing the hearts and minds of the people of this country who have been forgotten: those in poverty, without adequate heath care, without good jobs, without hope. Our nation would be blessed to have him in the White House.

ZEKE STOKES
Columbia

I wrote my column to explain the subjective impression I had formed of John Edwards from my experience, and it was what it was. Zeke — who is a good, trustworthy young man of respect, an up-and-comer in Democratic campaign circles who helped guide Jim Rex to victory last year — formed an entirely different perspective.

I urge you to pay every bit as much attention to his opinion as to mine. That’s why we have letters to the editor — to foster productive dialogue, from which we can all learn.

He doesn’t change my mind about my experiences, but he does give me another perspective to think about. And that’s the point of it all.

You mean the insurance industry is AGAINST it?

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Check out the letters to the editor today and be edified.

It seems that a guy who speaks for the insurance industry doesn’t like our own Paul DeMarco’s idea for a single-payer health-care system. Well, that settles that. If the middlemen, who would be completely eliminated along with all their lovely profits, think it’s a bad idea, why on Earth should anybody listen to a mere physician such as Paul?

Anyway, for y’all who are too lazy to click, here’s the letter:

Government monopoly won’t help health care
Guest columnist Paul DeMarco (“Really fixing U.S. health care,” June 5) argued that single-payer health care should be implemented in America.
Although Americans are clamoring for health care reform, this is one proposed solution that should be taken off the table.
Under a single-payer system, the government could hold a monopoly over health care coverage, offering only one insurance plan option. If the government decided to reduce funding or deny coverage for medical technologies or procedures, Americans would either have to forgo potentially life-saving procedures or finance them out-of-pocket.
Under the current system, if people are dissatisfied with their plan, they can simply switch insurance carriers.
Any possible savings from a single-payer system would be quickly eaten up by increased use, and bureaucratic inefficiencies would replace functioning free-market systems. The result would be an overburdened, underfunded system that is more cumbersome to navigate than the current one.
We should seek alternatives to a single-payer system to ensure health care for all.

ED BYRD
President
S.C. Association of Health Underwriters
Columbia

I was interested in how he brushed over the "any possible savings" part. Savings, of course, would be inevitable, because you would eliminate the third-party profits. Whether that were "quickly eaten up" in the way he suggests or some other way is certainly possible, but not inevitable.

Today’s immigration editorial