The Times' editorial page today takes President Obama to task for his back-and-forth pronouncements on the destructive practice of mountaintop coal mining. We say the president merits "quiet applause" for new restrictions, but we also note that they come on the heels of approval of two-dozen new projects.

The best approach to mountaintop mining would be to ban it completely. It's cheaper and less labor-intensive than underground mining, but not worth the environmental cost. At a minimum, Obama should address some other highly destructive rule changes imposed by the Bush administration -- a good place to start would be restoring a regulation that forbade mining within 100 feet of a stream, and disallowing the use of mine waste as "fill" material in waterways.

The editorial board also scolds the president about his exception-filled "paygo" plan and the rest of the decisions that may show how comfortable Washington is getting with deficit spending. Growing the debt may have had some merit as a way to stimulate the economy, but where are the plans to restore fiscal balance?

And we take another look at the difficulty in firing bad teachers, and the role that unions play in elevating teacher job security over the welfare of students. The new secretary of Education wants teachers to be paid based on how well their students learn. California isn't close to that, or any other objective measure.

Here, it is considered revolutionary for a school board to beg for relief from a tortuous, money-wasting teacher termination process that is nearly doomed to failure anyway.

On the Op-Ed page, Ben Ehrenreich calls on the U.S. to get down off its high horse on torture. It isn't new, he argues, and it isn't a thing of the past either.

Despite our protestations, we have little to be surprised about. The Bush administration's great act of hubris was not to allow torture -- that was nothing new -- but to attempt to shelter it within the law. Now, when President Obama vows that "the United States does not torture" and spars with the former vice president over details, he crosses his fingers behind his back and saves himself a loophole. Via "extraordinary rendition" -- a Clinton administration innovation -- our government is still free to outsource torture and claim it doesn't know.

Ehrenreich last wrote for The Times in April, when he reviewed "News From the Empire" by Spanish novelist Fernando del Paso.

Author Craig Childs is friends with and lives among private collectors who grab pot fragments and other archaeological artifacts, robbing the bits and pieces of much of their historical value. He opposes the practice -- but describes the mixed feelings he has about recent raids that resulted in the arrest of some of his friends.

Childs last wrote for The Times in February, when he discussed what a recent finding of chocolate in an ancient New Mexico jar has to say about pre-Columbian North American civilization.

And Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez wonders whether the recent murderous attacks on an abortion doctor and the Holocaust museum in Washington mean we have entered the era of the angry old man.

Photo credit: Jeff Gentner / Associated Press

Here at the Opinion Manufacturing Division, we've got our minds on our money and our money on our minds. In particular, that would be our state tax dollars. On the Op-Ed page, Timothy A. Hodson, head of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University, urges lawmakers in Sacramento to take a more realistic approach to power sharing in a divided but still largely Democratic state:

Many Republicans declared the defeat of Proposition 1A as the triumph of "tea parties" and the return of the anti-tax spirit of Proposition 13. Good spin; lousy analysis. It's fantasy to think that voters in San Francisco, Santa Monica and other liberal and Democratic strongholds who overwhelming voted against 1A did so for the same reasons as Republicans.

The editorial board, meanwhile, says the state may need to close some parks temporarily, but that's not as great a money-saving opportunity as it seems:

The state must patrol and minimally maintain the parks with or without visitors or it almost surely will incur worse expense, not just long term but in the immediate future. Closing parks doesn't mean that people won't use them. It means that law-abiding people won't use them. Among those who will: meth lab operators, marijuana farmers, the homeless, taggers, poachers, rogue mountain bikers and off-roaders, as well as just plain campers who think the rules don't apply to their personal visits.

Rounding out the editorial stack, the board calls for the Organization of American States to readmit Cuba, and editorial writer Dan Turner lambastes the multi-billion-dollar plans to restore the Los Angeles River. Back on the Op-Ed page, columnist Tim Rutten argues that the murder of a late-term abortion provider in Kansas illustrates the need for both sides in the abortion debate to "break with the rhetorical recklenssness of the past." And Michael Siegel, a professor and tobacco-policy specialist at the Boston University School of Public Health, blasts a proposal in Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration purview over tobacco products, saying it would create "the appearance of regulation without allowing actual regulation."

Credit: Signe Wilkinson / Philadelphia Daily News

Even though it's a variation on the "Area Man" (or Area Woman) chestnut, the New York Daily News has a piece about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor that offers another twist on identity politics. Under the headline "Will Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Finally Meet His Match?", the article notes: "Neither of the brassy New Yorkers -- he's from Queens, she's from the Bronx -- suffers fools, or unprepared lawyers." (For the record, Scalia was born in New Joisey but raised in Queens.)

For a lot of non-New York readers, the adjective "brassy" is redundant: All New Yorkers are brassy types who won't suffer fools -- or sages -- gladly. My favorite New York story involves a freelance pitch I made years ago (eventually successfully) to The New York Times. When I reached the editor recommended to me, she answered the phone: "Who are you?"

Like ethnic stereotypes, their regional counterparts are rules proved (or unproved) by endless exceptions. Not every New Yorker is obnoxious, not every Southerner is hospitable, not every Californian says "like" a zillion times in every sentence. And yet  regional differences do survive even in an Internet-homogenized culture. Trial lawyers in my hometown of Pittsburgh loved to be pitted against Philadelphia lawyers, because the Philly mouthpieces hectored juries a mile a minute in a foreign, quasi-New York accent. It isn't just Southerners who preface their summations with "I'm just a simple, small-town lawyer."

I happen to enjoy the persistence of regional differences, especially the superior civility of Southerners. My Exhibit A appropriately comes from the U.S. Supreme Court, which I covered for a few years. At heavily attended oral arguments, spectators -- including student groups -- often were let out at the end of proceedings through the press section. As the students and teachers brushed by us, we would engage in small talk about where they were from and how the students had enjoyed the argument. ("I was riveted to my seat," one sarcastic seventh grader spat out. He reminded me of myself at that age.)

It's impressionistic, I admit, but I was struck by how many kids from Southern schools -- including boys --  addressed me as "Sir." It wasn't the first time I had encountered the North-South politeness differential. A TV news producer who moved from North Carolina to  Pittsburgh once told me that his son's high school classmates teased him relentlessly for addressing teachers and other adults as "Sir" or "Ma'am." I also have noted that Southerners of all ages who are caught up in CNN-friendly natural disasters address annoying TV reporters as "Sir" and "Ma'am."

Assuming Sotomayor becomes the third New York City product on the court (the decorous Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the exception that proves the rule here), it would be nice if a soft-spoken justice from the South would inject some civility into the judicial equivalent of a subway series. Alas, the only Southerner on the bench -- Clarence Thomas -- is soft-spoken to a fault, almost never opening his mouth during arguments.

The Times editorial page today points out that General Motors' bankruptcy filing is a chance to make a formal, forceful break with a history of inferior workmanship and design that has tattered its reputation. The public is willing to forgive a car company for its financial failings, but only if it makes cars people want to buy.

We also weigh in on the murder of Dr. George Tiller, which is being used by pro-choice groups as an opportunity to bash abortion opponents -- suggesting that the responsibility for his death is shared by the entire pro-life movement. Some arguments from anti-abortion groups are thinly veiled incitements to violence, but "it's unfair to ask abortion activists to muffle their message because it might inspire an unbalanced individual to commit an atrocity."

Finally, we note that the election of Mauricio Funes as president of El Salvador, who represents a party that was once a Marxist guerrilla group that fought for 12 years against U.S.-backed governments, isn't quite the grim news for American interests that it may appear. Funes is an admirer of President Barack Obama who has stocked his cabinet with economic pragmatists.

On the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg says the hubbub over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's statements about her superior wisdom as a Latina gives liberals the chance to have that dialogue on race they're always saying they want to begin -- yet they're running away from the issue as fast as they can.

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, gives President Obama some tips about what to say and do during his Middle Eastern trip. Such as: Don't fall for the illusion that there's such thing as the "Muslim world," and focus instead on practical country-by-country strategies.

Finally, Gina M. Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, bemoans the Schwarzenegger administration's proposal to shut down a small state agency -- the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment -- that costs next to nothing to run but that has made dramatic strides in protecting Californians from dangerous chemicals.

I'm a big believer in simulations. For most of my career I have moonlighted (or, as with my current early-morning  gig at George Washington University, mornlighted) as a university journalism instructor. One of my most useful teaching tools, if I do say so myself, is a mock news conference at which a newly appointed "special assistant to the president for youth affairs" (impersonated by a series of glib twentysomethings) answers questions from students about his plans for the job (a "listening tour" of college campuses), his embarrassing past opinions (excavated from a bogus database) and his personal background (including a marijuana rap). I prefer a simulated press conference to a real one with say, a city council member, because it works better pedagogically. Students tend to be tongue-tied in the presence of a real politico, however small-time.

But a journalism class isn't a Supreme Court confirmation, which is why I'm distressed to read that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, like previous nominees, apparently will be put though the mock Senate confirmation hearings by the Obama White House. These rehearsals are known as "murder boards," and Harriet Miers' performance in such simulations reportedly contributed to the demise of her nomination.

It's fine for presidential candidates to engage in role-playing before debates, and allow staffers to shape their answers and critique their deportment. Campaign gurus, like congressional aides, are part of a politician's extended family. The relationship between the White House and a Supreme Court nominee is, or should be, different. Apparently President Obama was scrupulous about not asking Sotomayor about her view of Roe v. Wade, for fear of conditioning her appointment on a promise that she would vote a particular way on a contested issue. Is it any less troublesome from a separation-of-powers perspective for Obama's aides to stage-manage Sotomayor's presentation of what are supposed to be her own views?

Let the woman speak for herself, and leave the role-playing to computer geeks and journalism professors.

Credit: AP Photo / Alex Brandon

After President Obama announced the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, some colleagues and I tried to answer the question "Is she or isn't she?" -- not "Is she or isn't she a judicial activist?", but "Is she or isn't she a Catholic?" The blogosphere yesterday featured a catholic (lower-case C) collection of opinions about whether the nominee, a Latina educated at a school named after Cardinal Spellman, was one of us, and to what extent. (The Boston Globe website offers a comprehensive survey of the speculations.)

Under the headline, "This Just In . . . Sotomayor IS Catholic," Steve Waldman at Beliefnet revealed that "a White House official just confirmed to me that she, in fact, Catholic." Later, however, Waldman caveated his scoop: "Another White House official elaborated slightly, Judge Sotomayor was raised as a Catholic and attends church for family celebrations and other important events."

This would make her a "cultural Catholic." Does that count? It certainly does when Catholic activists point to the size (and political clout) of their flock. As the saying goes, "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic." Or as a priest in Pittsburgh observed, after a friend of mine referred to someone as an ex-Catholic: "There are no ex-Catholics, only bad Catholics."

So, given that definition, Sotomayor would be would be the sixth RC on the court, reducing the Protestant cohort to one, Justice John Paul Stevens. Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are Jewish.

In a recent blog post, I warned of this marginalization of a group that long dominated the court (and everything else in America, except Hollywood, big-city police forces and organized crime). Still, no WASP Anti-Defamation League has formed to protest -- maybe because Sotomayor is a liberal Catholic, unlike co-religionists like John Roberts and Nino Scalia.

Which raises another question: Will hard-line Catholic bishops demand that a Justice Sotomayor enforce the church's opposition to abortion in her decisions? Will she be denied Holy Communion at one of those "family celebrations"? Or, as Waldman put it: "Will We have a SCOTUS "Wafer Watch'?"

Photo: Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor visiting her alma mater, Cardinal Spellman High School. Credit: White House handout, courtesy Getty Images.

Whatever one thinks of President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame's commencement -- and I think it was a PR triumph for both Obama and the university -- Obama's appeal for a more civil debate about abortion is probably a vain hope. That's partly because, as Obama said, "at some level the views of the two camps are irreconcilable." But another reason is that advocates on both sides of the debate are often disingenuous and even dishonest about their real positions.

Let's take the Catholic bishops first. Conservative critics of Notre Dame like to stress that the bishops have spoken, saying in 2004, "The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions." 

But this statement is murkier than it seems, which may be why a majority of U.S. bishops didn't condemn Notre Dame's invitation to Obama. Opposition to abortion may be a fundamental principle, but does it equate to support for every anti-abortion initiative in the political process? Apparently not. Last year the archbishop of Atlanta opposed a proposed amendment to the Georgia state constitution that declared, "The paramount right to life is vested in each human being from the moment of fertilization...."

Granted, Archbishop Wilton Gregory's problem with the amendment was that he wanted pro-lifers to focus on a federal Human Life Amendment rather than state-by-state efforts. But once the church acknowledges a distinction on abortion between the goal and particular tactics, it accepts that one can be anti-abortion, as Obama claims to be in a rather pallid way (why else suggest that the number of abortions need to be reduced?) and still oppose a particular anti-abortion policy, whether it's Georgia's amendment or the Mexico City policy, repudiated by Obama, of withholding U.S. funds from family-planning groups that used their own money to offer abortion services.

The most slippery argument propounded by the bishops -- and other anti-abortion activists -- concerns the reach of Roe v. Wade. "Recent polls showing support for Roe v. Wade describe Roe as the decision which legalized abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, a flagrant distortion of the truth. Roe created an unlimited right to abortion and most people think an unlimited right to abortion is wrong." The problem with this argument is that it's directed at people who oppose unlimited abortion, not all abortion, and rests on the assumption that some abortions -- those late in pregnancy when the fetus resembles a live baby -- are worse than others. But the actual Catholic position is that all abortions are equally repugnant.

But it isn't just pro-life partisans who play games with their own positions. Anticipating Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2005 said pro-lifers and pro-choicers should find common ground in supporting efforts, including exhortations in favor of "teenage celibacy," to reduce unwanted pregnancies. She also dusted off her husband's mantra that abortions should be "safe, legal and rare." But if choosing abortion is a fundamental constitutional right, one that trumps any state interest in outlawing or limiting abortion, why do we want it to be rare?

Getting back to Notre Dame, liberal Catholics who argue that Catholicism  is not a "single issue" faith and that Catholics need to support what the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin (cited by Obama in his speech) called a “consistent ethic of life” comprising opposition to abortion and support for anti-poverty efforts and world peace. But if you really believe, as Catholicism supposedly does, that abortion is the moral equivalent of the Nazis' extermination of the Jews, then a politician who supports legal abortion should be ostracized even if he or she takes the right position on national health insurance or nuclear disarmament. It pains me to say this, but I think at least some  liberal Catholics who wrap themselves in the "seamless garment" of a consistent ethic of life don't believe, deep down, that abortion is the outrage the bishops say it is.

Neither may the bishops: If abortion is truly murder, why do bishops condemn abortion clinic bombers? Most bishops presumably had no problem with the United States violently opposing Hitler. And if abortion really is murder,why do so many anti-abortion activists stop short of proposing that women who have abortions be treated as criminals? That position may make sense as a political tactic, but it's illogical and intellectually dishonest. So is most debate about abortion.

In anticipation of the upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee endurance test to be faced by President Obama's Supreme Court pick, the editorial board has some advice. To spare everyone involved the Bork-era partisanship, "inane" questions such as whether "the opposite of being dead is being alive?"  (which was posed to John Roberts) and flat-out unbelievable answers  -- Clarence Thomas saying he'd never though much about Roe v. Wade-- the Times editotial board offers some guidelines. It starts by deferring to the president (but not acquiescing).  The board, however,  is far from siding with the president on his recent decision to withhold photos of detainees being tortured.

Over in Op-Ed, contributing editor D.J. Waldie warns that neighborhods will suffer if Sacramento forces already struggling cities and counties to loan the state 8% of their property tax revenue. Meghan Daum ruminates on children's author Judy Blume and how her message urging donations to Planned Parenthood for Mother's Day kicked off a controversy with abortion foes. Rounding out the page, Lori Pottinger of the environmental group International Rivers says U.S. efforts to help Ethiopia would be better spent on climate change adaptation and anti-drought measures than a poorly planned dam.

As a follow-up to the kerfuffle over President Obama's speech at Notre Dame, a story was circulating in conservative Catholic circles last week about the Vatican's supposed veto of three potential U.S. ambassadors because they are pro-choice. Time says it ain't so, but the story wouldn't have gained the traction it did if it wasn't assumed that Obama would send a Catholic to the Holy See, a precedent established by Ronald Reagan.

From one vantage point, it's a positive development that a president could dispatch a Catholic, practicing or not, to represent the United States at the Vatican. Not that long ago, the very idea of an ambassador to the Vatican was controversial, but the easing of anti-Catholicism has rendered the objections to the idea quaint.

Given the role the Vatican plays in world affairs -- sometimes, as with its opposition to the war in Iraq, an unwelcome one from the U.S. perspective -- it makes sense to have a diplomat in what's left of the Papal States. But why should he or she be a Catholic? That assumption is part of the larger and dubious practice of choosing ambassadors with a religious or ethnic affinity to the countries of their posting. The latest example is the new ambassador to Ireland, Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney (who admittedly has been involved in worthy efforts to bring peace to Ireland).

Ideally Obama would send a career diplomat to the Vatican, but if he insists on making a political appointment he can avoid the abortion litmus-test problem by naming a Protestant, a Jew, a Muslim -- or an atheist.

Photo: Pope Benedict XVI, leading a prayer Monday. Credit: AP Photo / Andrew Medichini

When it comes to definitions of life before birth, our society tends to draw lines in the sand. Are you pro-choice or anti-abortion? Do you consider an embryo a human life or a collection of cells?

But the editorial board's discussion earlier this week on embryonic stem-cell research revealed a more unsettled group of reactions, even among a board that has been a booster of such research for years, that endorsed Proposition 71 and that welcomed President Obama's decision to qualify hundreds of new stem-cell lines for federal grants.

At the heart of the matter was this: Is it acceptable to create human embryos with the sole intent of destroying them to create new stem-cell lines? Current law prohibits federal funding from being used for that; for that matter, it also prohibits the use of such money to derive stem-cell lines from any of the 400,000 or so embryos now frozen in fertility labs, even though about 8,000 of those are slated for destruction in any case.

Board members had no qualms about using embryos that would be destroyed, but several shuddered at the thought of creating embryos for the purpose of research, which means for the purpose of destroying them. A couple were unaware that Proposition 71 allows the state bond money to be used for both types of research work.

The question is how we reconcile these two reactions. If we have no problem with the idea of destroying embryos that would have been destroyed anyway, we imply a belief that trash is trash, embryos no different from any other, and we might as well make good use of it. Sort of like turning a milk carton into a bird feeder instead of shipping it off to the landfill, as long as we didn't create the milk carton to be a bird feeder. To the extent that we as a society have a gut reaction against creating embryos for destruction, though, we are saying we don't look at these microscopic collections of cells as simply scientific supplies that might be used to bring new life into the world, or to embark on potentially life-saving research, or to simply discard if we have no better use for it.

Perhaps we -- and by this I mean supporters of embryonic stem-cell research -- are of feeling and thought more mixed than we might have assumed. 

Photo: Paul Sancya/AP