Thursday's editorial and op-ed pages:

Jonah Goldberg:We're all Progressives now
Conservatives and liberals are shifting. Both are finding faith in the power of the state.

Bill Stall: Draw the line on redistricting mischief
Take the legislative map out of the politicians' hands and give it to an independent panel.

Arianna Huffington: Don't be a hack, Hillary
Sen. Clinton's calculations on Iraq and flag burning leave Americans cold.

Julie F. Kay: Ideology won't prevent cancer
A vaccine that would reduce the risk of cervical cancer faces a challenge from the religious right.

Editorials

Abort this space shuttle mission
Why NASA should keep Discovery grounded on Saturday.

Union bosses today, school bosses tomorrow
In the muddled deal for authority over L.A. schools, one thing is clear: The teachers union would win.

Use restraint, Israel
Gaza incursion risks marginalizing Palestinian moderates.

Wednesday's opinion page goodness:

Meryle Secrest: Art lust
Why does a portrait by Klimt -- or by any other artist for that matter -- fetch $135 million?

Max Boot: Staying the wrong course in Iraq
A troop drawdown would lead to less security and further the perception that the U.S. is losing.

Erin Aubry Kaplan: Dead-ends and no sidewalks
The whitewashing of history may make America feel better, but it ignores ongoing African American struggles.

Editorials

Arresting prison reform
After starting strong early in his term, Gov. Schwarzenegger has backpedaled on important changes.

Court rules correctly on clean money
Restricting Vermont's limits on campaign contributions confirms the wisdom of a 30-year-old ruling.

Confusion instead of school reform
The state's plan for Los Angeles Unified's schools has too many ingredients and dices responsibility too finely.

Remember, you can comment on the editor's note here, or in the comments below.

Some preliminary blogosphere reactions to Baquet's column:

* Former Times staffer Ken Reich at Take Back the Times says: "For me the bottom line is that the press, on its side, should go back to its World War II policies and, fundamentally, side with the war effort."

* Armed Liberal at windsofchange.net says: "By the standard Baquet holds up here, any and all surveillance programs are up for disclosure, no matter how legal or effective - simply because the controversy exists. I guess I'd like to know where Baquet draws the line."

* Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: "Only a fool would believe [that the LAT is not out to get the president] given the Los Angeles Times' endless and almost unbroken war on the war over the past three years. And if Baquet believes it, he's completely out of touch with his paper's staff and their agenda journalism."

* Don Surber says Baquet gave a "reasonable explanation": "At least [the] LAT recognizes that there is an enemy."

* Nathan Goulding at the National Review's Media Blog: "It surprises me greatly that the L.A. Times considers itself to be the best judge of both 'legitimate public interest' as well as the 'cost to counterterrorism efforts.' Herein lies the arrogance."

* Patrick Frey at Patterico's Pontifications: "Baquet fails to offer any compelling justification for eviscerating this legal and successful counterterrorism program. And Baquet fails to recognize that his decision was made on the basis of woefully inadequate information."

* Political Fan writes: "The LA Times views the 'potential' abusive power of the Bush administration to be greater than that of the terrorists."

* Blue Crab Boulevard writes: "Nowhere in my well-thumbed copy of [the constitution] do I see any mention of the press having an oversight role on the government."

* Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly's Political Animal: "Can anyone think of a serious case in the past few decades of a newspaper withholding an entire story like this simply because the government asked them to?"

* Ron Chusid of the Democratic Daily summarizes blogger reaction to the publication of the story: "While it is impossible to survery all the blogs, I found that generally the centrist blogs and those which describe themselves as 'moderate Republicans' were supportive of the newspapers, while the far right continued their authoritarian streak. "

Tuesday's dispatches from the opinion page:

Dean Baquet: Why We Ran the Bank Story
The Times editor on the paper's decision to expose U.S. money monitoring.
Please remember you can comment on Baqet's explanation here, or below.

Joel Stein: Misguided at Universal
A tour of the real Hollywood.

Kerry Madden: Surviving Senior Year
A parent copes with a terminal high-schooler.

Jerry Ellig: Politicians Shake Down the Net
Fights over issues such as 'Net neutrality' bring loads of campaign cash.

Editorials

Reactionary Train Wreck
Legislation inspired by the Glendale train tragedy would be costly without improving safety.

Buffett Spreads the Wealth
Astonishing $30-billion gift could spark a revolution in philanthropy.

The Case for Flag-Burning
An amendment banning it would make America less free.

In today's Times, Editor Dean Baquet wrote a column on "Why we ran the bank story." We'll have a more extensive post later rounding up public reactions, but for now we want to ask you -- what did you think of Baquet's column, and of the Times' decision to publish the controversial article on the secret government program to monitor international financial transactions?

The decision by the New York Times and L.A. Times to publish articles exposing a secret government program that tracks international bank transfers has drawn conserable fire. Both papers flouted a government request not to publish, and posted their versions online simultaneously last Friday. (The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post also published follow-up articles.).

President Bush today described the decision to publish as "disgraceful". Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) has called for the criminal prosecution of the NYT's "treasonour" behavior, and the conservative National Review seconded the motion. Both papers' articles included statements by their respective editors maintaining that the exposure of the program was in the public interest. NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller expanded on that statement in an open letter. Meanwhile, LAT columnist Patt Morrison interviewed Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus on KPCC (archived here).

The blogosphere reaction has been strong on both sides, with much of the criticism focusing on the other Times:

* Conservative Radio Host Hugh Hewitt bemoaned the impact this would have on national security, responding to McManus and Keller:

I think it would be a very good thing if we could chill the media's publication of national security secrets the release of which aid terrorists. This very narrow restraint on the press in no way fetters its general and robust freedom to investigate and publish.

* Patrick Frey at Patterico's Pontifications joins Hewitt against McManus, and ponders the legality of program, while defending the Wall Street Journal):

Among the editors’ primary concerns in deciding whether to publish the story [...] is whether the program was legal, whether it had adequate safeguards and controls, and whether it was subject to sufficient oversight. [...] The odd thing is that the articles published by the Los Angeles Times and New York Times indicate that the probable answers to all these questions was “yes” — yet the newspapers decided to publish anyway.

* Heather MacDonald and Gabriel Schoenfeld, writing in the Weekly Standard, attack the NYT and argue why it should be prosectued:

BY NOW IT'S UNDENIABLE: The New York Times is a national security threat. So drunk is it on its own power and so antagonistic to the Bush administration that it will expose every classified antiterror program it finds out about, no matter how legal the program, how carefully crafted to safeguard civil liberties, or how vital to protecting American lives.

* Roy Greenslade of the UK's left-wing Guardian newspaper disagrees:

The sad truth is that the New York Times is making up for the fact that it did such a poor job in holding the Bush administration to account for going to war in the first place. Its new-found spirit must not be crushed.

* The Progressive's Matthew Rothschild also defends the Times:

What King, Cheney, Bush, Gonzales, and many rightwing pundits don’t seem to appreciate is that we, the American people, need to have a free press to check the excesses of government.

* The Volokh Conspiracy has compiled some of its recent blog posts about prosecuting journalists. A choice quote from Volokh's Jonathan Alder:

Sensitive information should be treated sensitively, even by journalists. Conservatives, however, should be wary of novel applications of vaguely worded criminal statutes, particularly in the face of clear constitutional text.

Weekend and Monday Opinion from the LA Times:

Antonia Juhasz: Trading on Terror to Profit a Few
The U.S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement deserves greater scrutiny as it makes its way in Congress under the radar.

Karl Fleming: Twilight Softens This Tough Guy
Once a gritty journalist, he can finally show affection in his final years.

Denise Dresser: What They Hate Him, but They Made Him
Policies that favored Mexico's wealthy spawned the populist presidential candidate.

Editorials

The Dems' Iraq Gap
Senate Democrats' resolutions on the war are dubious from both a policy and political standpoint.

French Apple Mush
Why is Europe giving copyright holders veto power over technology?

Straighten Up and Fly Right
Sheriff's droning publicity stunt crashed.

Selected Weekend Commentary:

Roy Romer: The Mayor's Bad Deal
Villaraigosa's school plan is about power and money, not kids and reform, says the superintendent.

Anne Lamott: At Death's Window
The trauma, sorrow and bittersweet love that come with helping a friend to end his life.

Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger: Hollywood The GOP Knows You Don't Like Anchovies
Unpopular Republicans still own the art of politicking.

Azadeh Moaveni: 'The Great Satan' Makes a Comeback
Iranian public sympathy toward the U.S. has soured in a hurry.

Samuel Walker: Scalia Twisted My Words
Criminologist says his work was used to reach its opposite conclusion in Hudson.

Jonathan Turley: 'Big Brother' Bush and Connecting the Data Dots
The Total Information Awareness program was killed in 2003, but its spawn present bigger threats to privacy.

Meghan Daum: Coulter's a Satirist -- Really?
The fire-breathing commentator has her liberal critics up in arms.

The debate over Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to take over LAUSD continues (as it no doubt will for quite a while). There are two stories of note in today's Times. In the first, Duke Helfand and Joel Rubin detail opposition from teachers and principals. In the second, Rubin explores Villaraigosa's connections to teachers unions. Meanwhile, blogosphere reaction continues, most of it negative:

* Sacramento Bee columnist Daniel Weintraub writes that Villaraigosa's plan

should not be approved quickly, without a thorough public airing and debate. The biggest potential problem with the plan is that it blurs the lines of authority and accountability.

* Joe Scott at The Body Politic assesses the plan in the context of the mayor's overall performance (italics his):

The popular Villaraigosa’s charisma and passion is not in dispute. Rather, after all the political theater, accountability remains the issue. On the eve of his first year in office, there is a concern among many supporters that he has spread himself too thin, made too many promises he cannot keep and appeared too anxious to put his future state and national political ambitions first.

* Dave at Friends of Dave is also pessimsitic:

I hope in a year, as the mayor begins his third year in office that we can all look back on the progess LAUSD has made in the preceding 12 months and feel good about it. My fear is that we'll look back and wonder how we wasted yet another year and how yet one more group of students missed out on the public education they deserve.

* Ezra Klein colors himself skeptical as well:

I'm a wonk and I'm confused. This strikes me as a clear case of Villaraigosa feeling the pressure to deliver on a campaign promise and preferring to return with bad policy that's nevertheless an "accomplishment" than empty hands. Not good.

Friday’s wonderful opinion:

Gabriel Schoenfeld:Tough Talk on Korea, Too Late
Now they talk like hawks on North Korea, but former Clinton advisors acted like doves in the 1990s.

Rosa Brooks: Somalia's Deadly Lesson
Memories of dead soldiers dragged through the streets of Mogadishu help push U.S. foreign policy to extremes.

Henri J. Barkey: Amnesty For Insurgents Would Work
It would help stabilize Iraq and hasten an exit for U.S. troops.

Lincoln M. Lease: Pardon the Killers? Never!
A GI blasts Iraq's proposed amnesty for insurgents who kill U.S. troops.

Editorials

Dont Believe Net Neutrality Hype
When both sides are alarmist and wrong, bad legislation is just around the corner.

From Hungary '56 to Iraq '06
President Bush strains a historical analogy in the friendly confines of Central Europe.

Battling Over Bishops
Gender and sexuality trouble in the Episcopal Church.

The biggest news of the past 24 hours has been Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to increase mayoral influence over the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The Times, which has been in favor of mayoral control for almost a year, came out against the mayor's plan, writing that it dramatically reduces accountability, thereby undermining the main goal of mayoral control. Villaraigosa shot back in an op-ed, defending his plan and saying it would bring education to the forefront of mayoral and city politics. Reaction across the blogosphere has been mixed:

* Bob Sipchen and Janine Kahn at the Times' School Me Blog have been tracking the likelihood of a mayoral takeover. They woke up this morning with more questions than they had yesterday:

It's good that teachers will gain more control over cirriculum--unless the bad ones protected by union aversion to firing use their freedom to dodge responsibility. And who's going to step in? The board? LA's mayor? Superintendent-in-waiting Jackie Goldberg?

* Shari L at "An Old Soul..." writes:

I don't like it, and I suspect it'll be worse for the kids in the long run. I think increased diffusion of responsibility, especially with new governing parties introduced into the pot, will make it more difficult to get anything done, this in a system when it already is just about impossible to get things done.

* Boi From Troy says: "Romer is against it, so it may not be so bad after all."

* Roger L. Simon asks:

Will this new bueraucracy structure change what's fundamentally wrong with LAUSD (i.e. fiscal and staffing disinvestment, unequal distribution of resources, placing priorities of passing standardized test as opposed to real, life-long learning, et al) or will it just pass the buck and make it worse?

* Insane Teacher smells a conspiracy:

But with one person, and the mayor able to veto anyone he doesn't like, making the decision for spending over $25,000, look-out world, LAUSD is about to over-pay for some more falling-apart and falling-down buildings!

* And Mike Antonucci at Intercepts agrees with the Times:

The deal does provide one critical element that all parties to the agreement want: ass-covering. When this goes wrong (and believe me, it will), no one can be singled out for blame.