On the first Monday in October, the Times editorial page crosses its collective fingers and hopes the U.S. Supreme Court's docket of low-profile cases will mean a relatively apolitical, civil and consensus-seeking year.

The page also takes a very non-picturesque look at very real and very non-jolly pirates, and criticizes the penny-wise, multi-million-dollar-foolish Bush administration order that California change the way it tallies illegal immigrants who use a state family planning and health treatment program. California's Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment Program reduces abortion rates and saves $1.4 billion in welfare and other costs so, of course, the administration can't let that go on.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez calls for a different way of looking at why people are religious, and Cal State Northridge economics Professor Shirley Svorny weighs in on the side of the market in the continuing saga of U.S. health care. The market breeds innovation, Svorny says, and innovation delivers lower costs:

For all its faults, America's healthcare sector has its advantages. It produces some of the highest survival rates in the world for cancer and other serious illnesses. Patients generally don't have to wait a year for a hip replacement. Being 70 doesn't make you ineligible for a kidney transplant. And U.S. medical innovations benefit other countries that suffer from the lack of them in their government-run schemes.

Rather than give up on all that, let's deregulate medical care so that providers can find innovative ways to deliver high-quality care cheaply. Let's eliminate the increasingly strict education requirements for clinicians and let medical professionals offer walk-in physicals or other services at competitive prices. Like Wal-Mart and MinuteClinic, they will rely on brand name and reputation to assure quality.

Washington, D.C., attorneys David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey express some alarm, or at least concern, over the increasing frequency of "universal jurisdiction" to bring indictments in one nation against accused criminals in another.

What we are seeing is not the birth of a global rule of law but a type of worldwide judicial anarchy. Spain's judges should not be driving foreign policy at the United Nations -- but they are. That is a problem, just as it would be a problem if some other country's judiciary were doing it. There is, in the end, a difference between an independent and an imperial judiciary.

Graphic: Christopher Serra, For The Times

John McCain (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Enough worrying about Sarah Palin's foreign policy expertise, time to return to John McCain's.

The Spanish press -- in Spain, on the Iberian Peninsula, east of Portugal and south of  France -- is having a field day over a Cadena SER radio interview  in which the senator seems to confuse Spain's prime minister with a strongman in Latin America.

In the beginning of the interview, McCain discusses how he would not sit down with presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or Evo Morales of Bolivia and certainly not with Raul Castro.  Standard fare. The interviewer then says, "Let's shift to Spain, would you invite President [Jose Luis Rodriguez] Zapatero to meet with you in the White House?" This is a big deal for Spaniards; Zapatero never received such an invitation from President George Bush. At first McCcain gives a vague answer about how he'll work with anyone who cooperates withe U.S. but is determined to stand firm against our enemies. When pressed again, he makes no promises but notes "the importance of "our relationship with Latin America."

Perplexed, the interview blurts out "But I'm talking about Europe. About Spain!" Even then, McCain indeed does stand firm. He never giving a clue that he acutally knows who Zapatero is. He speaks in English and a Spanish translater is speaking over him so I'll translate back to English: He'll be friends with our friends and stand firm against those who oppose us."

Zapatero (PEDRO ARMESTRE/ AFP /Getty Images)

The Spanish press is of several minds: It's possible McCain, who in April said he would be pleased to meet with Zapatero, forgot the Prime Minister's name. Or maybe, because of all the previous talk about Latin American leaders he confused Zapatero with Zapatista? Does he really thinks Spain is a troublesome country somewhere in the Andes? Others wonder if the Republican candidate is still sore about Spain pulling its troops out of Iraq.

When told of McCain's refusal to invite him to the White House, Zapatero brushed it off, saying he'll work with whichever man gets elected. Then he stumbled into what would be a gaffe here in the U.S., by graciously adding:  "tenga el color que tenga" meaning,  "whatever his color."

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez today offers what, with any luck, will be the Op-Ed page's last take on the lipstick-on-a-pig squabble between the McCain-Palin campaign and Barack Obama. To Rodriguez, it's a sign of the GOP's descent into the politics of victimhood that conservatives have long decried. And unlike the liberal spin on victim politics, which is based on economic populism, the current Republican version is based on cultural divides, Rodriguez writes:

The enemies list is made up of professors, public intellectuals and entertainers, not captains of industry. And without any real redress in mind, conservative populism is all about emotion and personal grievance, not righting any particular social or economic wrong. You'd think the rise of conservative media, eight years of a conservative administration and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court would have undermined the GOP's victim strategy -- they are in power, which is one way to define "elite."

Ahh, another day, another flood of angry responses. If you feel victimized by Rodriguez's column, please fill in the comment box below.

Elsewhere on the page, Francesca Ratner sinks into the complexities of Prop. 4, an initiative to require a parent or other adult relative to be notified before a minor's abortion, and unearths a maze of red tape, humiliation for pregnant teens and potential lawsuits. And Brookings economist Rebecca M. Blank calls for Congress to update the way poverty is measured in America to better reflect government aid programs, regional differences in the cost of living and new spending patterns.

On the editorial side of the ledger, the Times' editorial board blasts a bill by state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) to protect Indian casinos against competition from charity-sponsored bingo:

It's more than a little troubling to see the haste with which lawmakers, who receive huge donations from tribes, rush to do their bidding. The state had been in the process of determining the legality of charity bingo machines, but Cedillo's bill would end that discussion. Californians should demand to see it reopened.

The board also notes how United Airlines' investors were ill served by the Internet's power to distribute bad information. And it urges U.S. policymakers not to overreact to Venezuela and Bolivia expelling American ambassadors, which would only play into the hands of leaders Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales:

Did somebody announce we are at war with Latin America and forget to tell us? The expulsion of the ambassadors came seemingly without provocation, and the notion that President Bush is plotting an invasion is laughable. Yet for Chavez and Morales, provoking the United States serves two purposes: It distracts domestic attention from their disastrous policies and could, they hope, produce an overreaction in kind from Washington that would further their interests.

Is the left surging? Is the right wrong? Dig this week's Latin America Dust-Up.

In today's exchange, Angelo Rivero Santos, deputy chief of mission at the Venezuelan embassy, say at least three Bush Administration misdeeds are to blame for poor U.S.-Venezuelan relations. New America Foundation senior fellow Andrés Martinez agrees on one of those points but calls the others respectively absurd and hollow.

Yesterday, Martinez said the folkloric leftist authoritarianism of Hugo Chavez is already in eclipse, while Santos said self-regulating markets and economic liberalization have failed in Latin America.

Note on the title: We had initially conceived this exchange as focusing on Colombia-Venezuela-y-norte for a restaging of the great Reagan-era battles over the Caribbean and the northern parts of South America. As the debate seems to be moving toward a broader Latin America discussion, we will correct, and we appreciate commenters for pointing out our imperialistic geography.

Joel Stein fondly remembers his days as a "Dungeons and Dragons" devotee, and cartoonist Ted Rall wonders what would happen if Barack Obama had to answer that 3 a.m. phone call in the White House. Ronald Brownstein points out that Hillary Clinton inspires as much political passion in women as Obama does in youth, and Stanford University Hoover Institution fellow William Ratliff worries that without more sensible policy from Colombian, Venezuelan and Ecuadorean leaders, FARC will spark a larger Latin American conflict. Columbia University curriculum director Roosevelt Montás explains why Latinos love Hillary (hint: it's not about race):

I suspect that two little-noted factors, both of them cultural rather than economic or ideological, account for the strength of Latino loyalty to Clinton: a residual comfort with political dynasties inherited from Latin American history, and the respect she commands for her family loyalty in the face of Bill Clinton's marital failings. Both factors reflect traditional family values, a cultural trait among Latinos that political strategists like Karl Rove have exploited in the past.

The editorial board hails Mexico's movement toward national judicial reform, and warns that the City Council crosses the line when it attempts to micromanage private companies' personnel decisions. The board also says it's all for giving Florida and Michigan a second chance to choose a Democratic nominee -- if they foot their own bill:

It's time to declare an electoral Groundhog Day for Florida and Michigan and allow voters there another chance to help choose the Democratic presidential nominee. Ordinarily, this page objects to mulligans, do-overs and last-minute changes that erode respect for the rules of fair play. But there is a way to put the increasingly wacky nominating contest back on track, giving voters a say without rewarding the errant state politicians who broke the rules in the first place.

Readers react to a March 1 editorial on the healthcare industry's practice of rescission. George Epstein writes:

I consider healthcare no different from police and fire protection, which everyone receives regardless of financial status. Likewise, health protection should be available to everyone.

Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and other luminaries tried last week, but it was Hugo Chavez who drew the lion's share of Opinion's modest traffic. Venezuela stories took two places in the top 10, including Number One. And two others — Michael Rowan and Douglas Schoen's "Will Chavez pull the trigger?" and the Bolivarian Republic's own argument that "Venezuela knows what it's doing" — barely missed making the list. With the can't-lose campaign slogan "Pax Americana, cyber-bullying and Earl Ofari Hutchinson too," we round out the list. And if you want to revive the old argument about the Times' alleged bias against women writers, this he-man woman-haters collection of bylines should give you a start:

1. "Venezuela's path to self-destruction" by William Ratliff

2. "Bush isn't the only decider" by Bruce Ackerman

3. "How to punish a cyber-bully" by Jonathan Turley

4. "My taco with Tancredo" by Joel Stein

5. "Bad for Huckabee, good for America" by Dan Gilgoff

6. "Unheralded military successes" by Robert D. Kaplan

7. "The black-Latino blame game" by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

8. "Ron Paul isn't that scary" by Jonah Goldberg

9. "Venezuela veers toward dictatorship" by the editorial board

10. "At peace with Pax Americana" by Jonah Goldberg

You, the FLP, continue to shower us with white-hot reactions to our Opinion Dailies:

Michael McGough's "Unions labeled" draws a flinty rejoinder from a man of the cloth in Chatsworth, CA:

Sir:

Michael McGough writes in "Unions Labeled" that the Employee Free Choice Act would ". . . give unions an unfair--one might even say un-American--advantage." Implicit in this statement is that unions and employers are on a level playing field.

The number of union-affiliated employed workers has fallen from one-third in 1945 to 14 percent in 1998. Although there are many suggestions for the decline, employer anti-union tactics--often illegal--have included: firing union activists, captive indoctrination of workers, showing anti-union videos, intimidating supervisor one-on-one meetings with workers, bribing of workers, open or veiled threats to close the business or facility, and actively supporting anti-union committees of workers. These tactics typically are designed, promoted, and managed by a growth-industry of high-powered anti-union consultants.

The facts are well-documented: the playing field is not level, and organized employer opposition to unions is the principal explanation for the decline in union membership. Much of this is true because of the incredible weakness of U.S. labor law and NLRB practices. Given this scenario, it's hardly unfair--or un-American!--to allow unions an advantage that would barely begin to level the playing field.

Rabbi Moshe ben Asher

Jon Healey's "Sirius, XM and American values" brings in some sound advice from a Phoenix, AZ student:

As a Sirius user...

I block any bad content. I just wish also that they get a dedicated fm channel. Even NPR overpowers them. Regular radio needs only one FM station just one not 2.

A reader in Afghanistan gives Sonni Efron a browbeating for "Dead reporters and the information gap"...

This article is a sad statement on the perverse and tortured logic that guides the thinking of the press.  All deaths caused by terrorists are lamentable.  The cost to society in the lost potential of those lives is incalculable.  However, to pretend that the information gap is caused by the deaths of reporters is simply journalistic narcissism in its most dangerous and deceptive form.

The true cause of the information gap in the United States and throughout the world is not the deaths of reporters on the front line in war zones.  The information gap is caused by the death of integrity in the reporters and editors in the news rooms thousands of miles behind the front the lines.  It is the fallacious concept that the newspeople have the ability and the duty to shape the news that is responsible for the information gap. 

The article refers to reporters asking impertinent questions of those in power as if this is an everyday occurrence.  The problem is that the media only questions those in power who disagree with their predetermined story line.  The public needs and deserves a media that will step back and report the story without the bias and backhanded remarks of the enlightened journalists. 

War is tragic and its toll in lost lives and suffering is enormous.  The only thing worse than having to fight a war against terrorists and fascists, be they Islamic, Nazi or any others, is to lose that war because the media undermined the Nation's will to win through its biased, one sided portrayal of the issues.  That is the only thing that can truly render the sacrifice and suffering of all the victims of this war meaningless.

Patrick D. Clonan
Police Advisor, Herat, Afghanistan

...while a reader in our nation's capital sees ominous similarities between being killed in Iraq and paid by Rupert Murdoch:

There are many disturbing points made in this article.  All made me cringe for the horror of possibilities.

As I read this I also thought of Rupert Murdoch’s probable takeover of Dow Jones.  The imminent launch of Fox News Channel?!  Where can you find the highly-regarded news sources (of the near-future)?  We seem to be racing toward a global society where pertinent, objective, reliable information will be available to fewer and fewer people—if it can be found (and recognized).

Is there anyplace left where the determination or the essential aspect is ruled by something other than the ability of the highest bidder? 

DJH in Washington D.C.

Finally, the eternal revolutionaries come out to denounce my own "Semper Fidel." Larry Maxcy provides some biting wit:

Hi,

You have to admit that Fidel and Hugo have quite a bit in common. The United States has failed on multiple occasions to kill them. I imagine this promotes a certain camaraderie.

All best,

Larry Maxcy

From Belize, bestselling author Cervantes sets quill to paper:

Dear Mr. Tim Cavanaugh,

I believe that the system that has not worked is the system that shamelessly left many poor and black people in New Orleans homeless and left to die like animals after hurricane Katrina.  Fidel's system has succeeded in giving every citizen of Cuba dignity and a decent life as human beings for almost 50 years consistently.  Of course, Fidel's system is very unlike the American capitalist system in which only a tiny portion of the population enjoy and control the greater mass of the wealth of a nation.  Katrina exposed the American system for what it is in its raw form.  And we, the whole world, saw it disappointedly and dejectedly.

People like Chavez, Morales and Correa are rightfully looking to Fidel for guidance because the his system puts the welfare of the society first, over the welfare of just one or a few privileged individuals.  The American system is based on money and the accumulation of wealth regardless of who is stepped on or at whose expense, as long as the victim is not an American.  America follows the doctrine of arrogance through power and right through might.  It is there for everyone to see.

Fortunately, the people in Latin America have realized that while they were being blinded by the glitters of the promised wealth through the capitalist system, they were being robbed of their nation's wealth and intelligence by the empire and its local collaborators.  Please realize that when you speak of Hugo Chavez, you are speaking of  man that is democratically supported by the popular will of 2/3 of Venezuela's population and a man that as fairly won about 8 elections and referendums in 8 years, so unlike George Bush and Felipe Calderon, who both had to cook and concoct many questionable deeds to beat Al Gore and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, respectively.

Definitely, you, nor anyone high up in Washington, cannot deny the fact that those same leftists, that you criticize for investing the nation's wealth back into the development of its citizens, have the overwhelming support of the people of their nations.  After all, is this not true democracy?  The only thing wrong with these true democracies is that the fair and open democratic process did not deliver the preferred outcomes and results that the empire so much desired.

The people are speaking.  You must listen to us.  Any other way is definitely anti-democratic.

Sincerely,

Ramon Cervantes
Belize

And from the great white north, Heather manages to bring the subject around to why Canadians are better than Americans:

I was in Cuba three times in the past year Tim.  How many times have you been there?  I cycled from Santiago to Havana, three quarters of the island.  How much of Cuba have you really seen up close, Tim? How many real, everyday Cubans have you been able to speak with at length?  Get their heartfelt views, etc.  That sort of thing.

You didn't mean Canada in your reference to the "Cream of the Global Left", did you?  After all, we have stayed friends and invested in that brave little country these past 50 years or so." Google " Ian Delaney's recent comments about how much more money Sherritt International is going to invest there in the near future. Course he isn't allowed in the United States due to the Helms Burton Law.  He says it hasn't produced a dent in his lifestyle.  Some of us non-americans just have this chip on our shoulder about other nations trying to tell us who we can associate or do business with.  Go figure.

Want to know what is always surprising to most of your "socialist neighbours" up here in Canada? ( Yikes! We even have universal health care here, just like the Castro Regime!)  It's when you watch some television show and they are interviewing americans, and the interview subject says something like " I just don't know why the world is so angry at the United States...why bad things like 911 happened.  We americans are good people...",  etc., etc.  No one wishes bad things to happen. But anwser me this:

We in other countries just wonder why the average american, with a reasonable level of intelligence does not see what the rest of the world sees: that your government is run by big business and lobby groups like those folks down in Miami Dade who sponsor terrorism themselves.  You can make all the jokes about Fidel you want.  He will pass on one day. When he does the world will show their respect at his funeral.  No one from the US government had better dare show theirs.

Heather
Canada

That's it for this installment. Keep those cards and letters coming!

You, the FLP, react to recent Opinion Dailies.

My daily "Semper Fidel" draws a hip-hip for Castro from Los Angeles' own Matthew Glesne:

Did I miss the larger point of today's broadside against Fidel Castro, or was it really just about calling the international left "pathetic" as well as naming and shaming those who dare visit Cuba? If so, one could be forgiven for having a different opinion about who is looking desperate and pathetic at this moment in time, particularly given the distortions and things left out of the piece.

As an opening salvo, you inexplicitly call the leaders of Vietnam, Venezuela and Bolivia a "murderous row of left-wing luminaries." While this sort of baseless name calling is not new in the US press, I would not expect it from an editorial page editor of the LA Times. The leaders of the dozens of other nations that have visited Cuba this year are apparently not as exciting to mention. Neither is the fact that Cuba was elected to head the Non-Aligned Movement - still the largest, most important bloc of developing countries in the world.

While you seem to certainly have some fascination with Cuba, it is a shame you apparently do not care to scratch the surface of the events you're commenting on. If so, you'd would have found that the Vietnam visit was long in planning, and from the way Fidel went on and on about their country's successes, it appears both countries see benefit from cavorting with the other. Ortega and Chavez on the other hand, were in Havana for working meetings based around the recent ALBA conference, whereby those country's comparative advantages are able to be put to use. Thousands have sight, health care and affordable energy supplies for the first time out of the deals.

Cuba is said to have produced a "catastrophic economic model." While this is certainly conventional wisdom, an actual glance at statistics might propel one to think otherwise. During the decades of great neo-liberalism, Cuba has been one of the best performing economies (even with a horrendous depression after the fall of the USSR). For three years in a row Cuba and Venezuela have had the top growing economies in the region (the CIA pegs it at 8%, using an outdated formula tailored for capitalist countries. Cuba says 12%).

You call Castro's writing "absurd and paranoid," apparently unimpressed by the US' sordid history on the island or that the US maintains a policy of regime change, has recently spent millions on creating a "plan for transformation" and created a new CIA office dedicated to Cuba and Venezuela. Never mind the illegal and immoral embargo that gets shot down at the UN by a new record landslide each year (184-4 this year I think).

Sincerely disappointed
Matthew Glesne
Los Angeles
aviewtothesouth.blogspot.com

Eric Root takes a gander at Michael McGough's "We're all scandal-plagued attorneys general now," and lays down the law:

Being Hispanic is not enough.  Gonzales has violated his oath of office, the Constitution, the laws and treaties of the United States, and any reasonable standard of administrative competence.  If that record is not enough to have him removed from office, by firing or impeachment, then we are no longer a nation of laws.  Since the Bush Administration's record shows that our President intends turn the United States into something other than a nation of laws, the impeachment process must begin.  Political calculations are not enough; this is not business as usual. 

Eric Root

The editorial board points out that the road to stopping genocide in Darfur travels through Beijing's 2008 Olympics:

[W]hen director Steven Spielberg, an artistic advisor to the Games, sent a personal letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao requesting a change in policy toward Sudan, it got attention. Shortly afterward, Bashir permitted the 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers, and the timing may not have been coincidental.... China, which sees the Games as a sort of coming-out party, is desperate to avoid an embarrassment like the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics.

Taking up the cause of the little (or littler) guys in two other editorials, the board suggests Microsoft may not be able to bat down the open source movement, and asks the Securities and Exchange Commission to support the UC Regents in their case against Enron's bankers.

On the op-ed page, former Associated Press Venezuela correspondent Bart Jones describes the shenanigans got RCTV kicked off air by Hugo Chavez. George Washington University's Walter Reich explains why King Herod's tomb is the latest hurdle for peace in the Middle East. Patrick Brady asks for amnesty for doping cyclists, and columnist Ronald Brownstein asks why Democrats are harking back to Clinton-era healthcare reforms.

On the letters page, Darcy Vernier of Marina del Rey has figured out how to get U.S. troops out of Iraq: "When every family is looking at their son (and maybe daughter) possibly heading off to deadly war, the resultant outcry will bring the country and the war to a stop."

Online, Tom Tanton of the Institute for Energy Research and Judy Dugan of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights discuss rising gas prices in this week's Dust-Up. Today they consider whether there's a right price for a gallon of gas.

Last week's column by Venezuelan ambassador Bernardo Alvarez was part of our new "Blowback" feature, allowing for longer replies to our coverage than is typically afforded in the Letters page. To the extent that we can do so without vanishing into interminable orifices of self-reference, we'd like to keep up the discussion of Blowbackable items. And Hugo Chavez always draws a crowd. So without further ado, here's what  Hicksville, NY's Bret P. Wallach had to say about Alvarez' column:

Why do you allow a puppet of Venezuela's dictator, Hugo Chavez, to write an editorial in your paper? You have just lowered your paper to their standards.