The editorial board grants a rare praise to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday for his actions with regards to the California Nursing Board. The governor dismissed four members of the board after a L.A. Times and ProPublica article exposed negligent nurses who stayed on duty during protracted investigations into their conduct. While the board members called Schwarzenegger an "action hero" for his response, they wished it would've come sooner -- and with other boards too:

As confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor near, my inbox runneth over  with commentary on the nomination from special-interest groups. the latest is a release from the conservative group Committee for Justice (not to be confused with the Committee for Public Safety). Here's the leadoff:

"In a letter released today and attached below, more than two dozen leaders of the Second Amendment community from across the nation urged senators 'not to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next associate justice of the United States Supreme Court,' citing their 'grave concern' over her Second Amendment record."

This irked me for a reason that has nothing do with the merits of Sotomayor's nomination. I'm not surprised that the gun lobby has "grave concern" about the judge (someday I'd love to receive a press release expressing "mild concern"). It's the use of the term "Second Amendment community," the latest in a long line of psuedo-communities.

I still find the term "intelligence community" bizarre, maybe because it conjures up the image of a suburban cul-de-sac where every father playing basketball with his kids is a spy. But there's also the "gay community," the "disability community" and, of special interest to Angelenos, the "entertainment community." 

This perversion of the word "community" has insinuated itself into dictionaries. Webster's online version offers eight definitions of "community." Fittingly, the first is: "A group of people living in a particular local area." But No. 4, with a bullet, is: "The body of people in a learned occupation." (I suppose firing a gun is a learned occupation if you're a sniper.)

"Community" bothers me not just because it's a cliche; the use of the term in political contexts is freighted with the dubious assumption that "communities" are monolithic. What is the "black community,"  invoked so facilely by activists and politicians? Or the "Latino community"? As the liberal-conservative schism over the policies of the current pope demonstrates, a cohesive "Catholic community" is also an illusion.

Our current president was a community organizer, but the ones the young Barack Obama organized were real communities, not constructs. Maybe Obama's experience will rehabilitate the original connotation of the term -- including in the journalistic community.

Photo: Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times

An international poll comes along showing that although Americans are fairly knowledgeable about Charles Darwin, they don't hold much truck with this whole theory-of-evolution business.

Some 71% of Americans know of Darwin and at least a little about his theory of natural selection, a number right up there with Great Britain, according to the poll of 10 countries conducted by the British Council, which describes itself as "the UK's international body for cultural relations." And if 71% seems sort of low, compare it with South Africa, where 73% had never even heard of Darwin.

But knowing isn't necessarily loving. Among those who are familiar with the author of "On the Origin of Species," only 41% of Americans agreed with the statement that "Enough scientific evidence exists to support Charles Darwin's theory of evolution." Where were the believers in evolution most likely to live? India, with 77%. And we wonder why that country is renowned for its good education, especially in the sciences--and why this country historically tests in the mediocre realm.

Photo by Darko Vojinovic/AP
 

A would-be Republican challenger is trying to capitalize on Sen. Barbara Boxer's now infamous reprimand of a general for addressing her at a hearing as "Ma'am" instead of "Senator." According to Chuck DeVore, Boxer's dressing down of Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers reflected liberal contempt toward the armed forces and was just what you'd expect from a Vietnam War protester.

But you don't have to be a Republican to be appalled by Boxer's display of pique, which has become must-gag TV on YouTube. "Do me a favor," Boxer told Walsh at a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "Could you say 'Senator' instead of 'Ma'am?' It's just a thing; I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it." To his credit, Walsh didn't reply: "Yeah, you did raise a lot of campaign contributions, Senator." Later, a Boxer aide said she and the general were pals.

Maybe, but Boxer had better forget about a campaign contribution from Miss Manners. As bloggers have pointed out, "Ma'am" is a term of respect comparable to "Sir," which is the way military officers address the president. It's also a contraction of "Madam," as in "Madame Secretary Hillary Clinton." (Walsh began his testimony by addressing Boxer as "Madam Chair.")  If "Ma'am" is good enough for the Queen of England, it ought to be good enough for Boxer. Yet it was the senator, not the monarch, who was not amused.

What's really galling about Boxer's snit is her refusal to give the general the benefit of the doubt. My mother taught her children that if someone knocks you over on a bus, assume it's an accident even if you suspect otherwise. There's no evidence that Walsh was deliberately belittling Boxer, but she flamed him anyway -- before TV cameras. That would be gauche even if Walsh were in the habit of referring to male senators by their proper title but not female senators. But Boxer didn't make that accusation.

Correcting the way someone addresses you almost always makes the other person uncomfortable. Reporters covering the Supreme Court cringed when the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist would correct a nervous lawyer who addressed him as just plain "Justice Rehnquist." Pointing out an error can be awkward even when you're demoting yourself -- which is why I no longer object to being called "Professor" by students who don't realize I'm a lowly adjunct instructor. Cardinal Newman (or maybe it was my mother) said that a gentleman never offends. Neither does a lady senator.

* Photo of Sen. Barbara Boxer by Rich Pedroncelli / AP

Newt Gingrich has offered a grudging apology to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for calling the judge a racist. Here it is, from his Human Events column:

"Shortly after President Obama nominated her to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, I read Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s now famous words: 'I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.' My initial reaction was strong and direct -- perhaps too strong and too direct.  The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so. Since then, some who want to have an open and honest consideration of Judge Sotomayor’s fitness to serve on the nation’s highest court have been critical of my word choice. With these critics who want to have an honest conversation, I agree.  The word 'racist' should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable (a fact which both President Obama and his Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, have since admitted)."

I don't want to defend Gingrich, but his initial use of the R word is part of a larger slippage of precision about the definitions of "racist" and "racism."  In the 1960s, it was pretty clear who was a racist: an anti-black bigot, a segregationist (George Wallace) or a beliver in the innate mental superiority of one race (usually the white race) to others. Then the fudging began.

The initial blame belongs to the left, which liked to talk about "institutional racism." To borrow some legal jargon used in civil-rights cases, this established an "effects" test for racism rather than an "intent" test. If an institution (the military, higher education, the polity) is racist because its policies or folkways disproportionately disadvantage members of a particular race, they are "racist." This more encompassing connotation provided a short-term polemical advantage for liberals, but at the cost of diluting the original meaning of the term. The easier it is to cry "Racism," the less those accused of it will be stigmatized. If everyone's a racist, no one is.

But conservatives must share the blame for watering down "racist," again to score political points. I'm referring to the notion, dear to opponents of affirmative action, that racial preferences benefiting blacks or other Americans amount to "racism in reverse." This view is reflected in Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s view that a program that takes race into account for the purposes of educating black and white children in the same classroom is just as invidious as the segregated schools struck down in Brown vs. Board of Education. 

Rush Limbaugh at least acknowledged the sliver of difference between the two concepts  when he attacked Sotomayor: "Here you have a racist – you might want to soften that, and you might want to say a reverse racist." But even the "reverse" qualifier distorts an important difference between old and new "racism."  Take Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment. OK, it does assert that, in some cases at least, the wise Latina would out-judge the white male judge. But that supposed superiority has nothing to do with the argument of old-style racists that God or evolution had made whites smarter than other races.

It isn't just "racist" that has lost its sting through overuse. So has "homophobic." Here's a quotation from a primer from the The Campaign to End Homophobia: "Institutional homophobia refers to the many ways in which government, businesses, churches, and other institutions and organizations discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation."

I'll close with a thought experiment: If combatants in political and cultural wars were forbidden to use the R word, would they have to be more specific about their assertions? I think so, but we'll never know. Now I just hope that no one calls this post "racist."

* Photo of Newt Gingrich by Mary Ann Chastain / AP file

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.

Vice President Joe Biden, left, telling Sen. Arlen Specter how much more fun it is to be in the majority. (AP Photo / Ron Edmonds, File)

I can't claim to have predicted Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party, but I did offer my colleagues an accurate guess about what he would say in his statement: that he would be as much of a maverick in his new party as he was in his old one.

Sure enough, the statement contains this Arlenesque caveat:

My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans.... I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture.

And although I was surprised by Specter's switch, it reflects traits that have been on view throughout his public life, which I followed closely in my previous job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Notable among them is Specter's survival instinct, which long before today's party switch inclined him to, er, adjust his position to the demands of the moment.

In a 2005 column written after Specter championed a vote on some of George W,. Bush's judicial nominees, I compared the senator to the Vicar of Bray, a 16th century English clergyman who kept his pastorate as the monarchy seesawed between Protestantism and Catholicism. A poem about the vicar features this refrain:

And this is law, I will maintain
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I will be the Vicar of Bray, Sir.

Or the senator from Pennsylvania.

The editorial board today called for a narrower approach to strip searches of students at schools, saying that school officials should have a reasonable suspicion that a student is carrying contraband.

Having a reason is always better than not having a reason, I suppose, but I cannot imagine circumstances under which it would be acceptable for school officials to strip-search a student. Our society has of late been all too willing to turn educators into cops--and the educators have been all too willing to go along. Thus we had the recent case of school administrators at Porter Middle School in Granada Hills who are accused of setting up their own little campus drug sting, talking a young boy into buying marijuana from another student. What on earth would give educators reason to think they could do such a thing? The belief that law enforcement is written into the job description.

I'm no apologist for kids who bring drugs on campus, but if there's a situation at school serious enough to call for a strip search, it's serious enough to call the police--and the child's parents. Do parents now have to advise their children not to speak to school authorities when they are hauled into the office, to warn them not to submit to strip searches and to make sure they know to have their parents called before they say a word?

Educators aren't lawyers, they aren't police and they don't know how to do these things properly--nor should they. I would think school officials themselves would never want to be seen as menacing law-enforcement types. Students are supposed to trust them, to talk to them. In the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, a middle-school girl, Savana Redding, was ordered in 2003 under the supervision of a nurse to strip to her underwear, then stretch the underwear so anything loose would fall out, because another student had accused her of carrying prescription-strength ibuprofen. (The search found none.) School nurses--when they exist at all--are the figures students turn to when they are ill or hurting. We would want children in our society to feel comfortable going to these people when they have been abused or molested or face other serious troubles.

Happily, California bans strip searches by schools. I know of no examples in this state where terrible things happened because of the law, no cases in which a principal or school nurse has said, "If only I'd been able to strip-search the kid, it would have saved everyone." But if anyone has heard of such cases, it would be interesting to know about them.

Photo of Savana Redding by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The Obama administration has abandoned the "war on terror" -- semantically, that is -- and author Reza Aslan says good riddance. In a pointed Op-Ed, Aslan argues that the phrase was counterproductive:

By lumping together the disparate forces, movements, armies, ideas and grievances of the greater Muslim world, from Morocco to Malaysia; by placing them in a single category ("enemy"), assigning them a single identity ("terrorist"); and by countering them with a single strategy (war), the Bush administration seemed to be making a blatant statement that the war on terror was, in fact, "a war against Islam."

That is certainly how the conflict has been viewed by a majority in four major Muslim countries -- Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Indonesia -- in a worldpublicopinion.org poll in 2007. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believe that the purpose of the war on terror is to "spread Christianity in the region" of the Middle East.

Also on the Op-Ed page, former Justice Department attorney David B. Rivkin Jr. bemoans the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to examine a West Virginia Supreme Court judge's refusal to recuse himself from a case involving his largest campaign contributor, and columnist Tim Rutten calls on the Los Angeles Unified School District to entrust its over-budget and behind-schedule arts campus downtown to a competent charter-school company.

On the other side of the Opinion divide, the Times editorial board again urges Washington to push Iraqi's Shiite-led government to reconcile with former Sunni insurgents. It shows little sympathy for former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), despite the prosecutorial misconduct that contributed to his defeat at the polls in November. And it calls on Sacramento to scrutinize why medical care costs in the workers' compensation system are rising so rapidly:

...[T]he mechanisms that insurers use to keep a lid on healthcare expenses are becoming increasingly expensive. And no wonder -- in the overhauled workers' comp system, more people are likely to review an injured worker's paperwork than his X-rays.

Credit: Anthony Russo For The Times

CNN, which ought to be known as SCNN (Self-Congratulatory News Network), has been gloating over the fact that its correspondent Ed Henry got under the skin of President Obama at Tuesday night's press conference.

If you believe CNN, Henry, part of the best political team in the galaxy, had a mano-a-mano moment with Obama as momentous as Dan Rather's famous face-off with Richard Nixon during a Watergate-era press conference. (Nixon: "Are you running for something?" Rather: "No, Sir, Mr. President, are you?")

It wasn't that big a deal. Henry asked the president a trite and tendentious question about AIG bonuses, i.e., why did Obama wait two days to express oyutrage? Why was all the action coming out of the New York attorney general's office? Oooh, burn! And then a mildly irked Obama replied: "It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.”

Now if Obama had said "I am not a crook!" or "You can't handle the truth!", this might have been a memorable exchange, and CNN could claim that Henry drew blood. But if Dan Quayle is no Jack Kennedy, Barack Obama is no Richard Nixon -- or Jack Nicholson.

On the other hand, Ed Henry may be another Dan Rather.  The CNN website is showcasing Henry's breathless "behind the scenes" account of this clash of the titans.

Two quotes:

   * "The pressure was on now because the president had called on me. Someone handed me a microphone, millions were watching, and it's scary to think about changing topic in a split second because you might get flustered and screw up."

    * "So I waited patiently and then decided to pounce with a sharp follow-up. From just a few feet away, I could see in his body language that the normally calm and cool president was perturbed. It was quiet -- too quiet."

    OK, I made up that last sentence. But it gibes nicely with Henry's self-dramatizing description of his encounter with Obama. And it reminds me of Gunga Dan's dramatic dispatches from Afghanistan all those years ago.

  Courage, Ed!