Opinion: In today’s pages
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The Council on Foreign Relation’s Laurie Garrett runs down all the ways in which recently resigned Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias managed to be a hypocrite:
He endorsed — indeed, designed — foreign policy positions that blended so-called Judeo-Christian sexual morals with U.S. foreign aid.... In order to receive funding, countries and aid organizations had to officially denounce or oppose prostitution, which, when it equates with unsafe sex, is a vector for the spread of HIV. However, this denunciation had no caveats, such as ‘except where legally practiced under supervision, as in Amsterdam.’ Nor did it have a caveat covering the use of ‘escort services and massage,’ as offered by ‘D.C. Madam’ Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s company.
Reason editor Nick Gillespie looks at another government office’s moralizing efforts, while columnist Ronald Brownstein shows why health insurance for children is a good investment for governments. Mark Kendall takes a trip to one of Pentecostalism’s most important landmarks — in an ally in Little Tokyo.
The editorial board writes in favor of a bullet train for California that could take travels from L.A. to San Francisco in two and a half hours. The board chastises city officials for tying grocers’ liquor licenses to labor standards, and reflects on a largely peaceful May 1 immigration rally.
But letter writers were less than thrilled about the push for immigration reform — Rancho Park’s Nabil Al-Murabit thinks illegal immigrants are ‘more of a threat to our way of life than Al Qaeda.’