Opinion: In today’s pages: Irish brogue, negative campaigns and ozone wars
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Professors John G. Geer and Ken Goldstein give a stirring defense of negative campaigning, and documentary maker Manchan Magan chronicles his attempt to speak only Irish as he traveled through the Emerald Isle. Writer Barry Gottlieb wonders why the Vatican tacked pollution onto an already long list of sins, and in Geraldine Ferraro’s race-tinged comments on Obama’s success, Gregory Rodriguez discovers that white suspicion toward successful minorities is alive and kicking:
If Ferraro had clarified her remarks (and she had oh so many television minutes last week to do so) -- perhaps explaining that what she meant was that Obama’s blackness has played a role in his appeal -- she might have saved her role in the Clinton campaign, but she still would have been only partly right.Because what’s impressive about Obama is not so much his African American identity as the way he wields it. He uses both the language of group pride and national unity. Unlike so many -- often media-created -- black leaders, Obama doesn’t use a parochial message of victimhood or the zero-sum logic of ‘us versus them.’ Rather than spend a lot of time talking about racism, historical or otherwise, he preaches a form of collective can-doism. He sells himself as a symbol of reconciliation and knows that at this point in history, cries of racism are the quickest way to turn off white voters who are tired of being made to feel guilty for racial injustice.
The editorial board glances over its shoulder at encroaching electronic surveillance, and burns a hole in President Bush’s overrulling of the EPA’s ozone standards. The board also flunks L.A. Unified School District for its ‘textbook incompetence’ involving a principal accused of molesting a 13-year-old student:
The alleged molestation of a 13-year-old girl who attends Markham Middle School is a gut-wrenching example of the weaknesses in management of the Los Angeles Unified School District. An egregious gaffe by top administrators on the 24th floor of the central office who are too distant from the kids on the ground to put their needs first. An initial attempt to downplay the significance of what happened, followed by an apology and an action plan to prevent such problems. The plan usually involves adding more layers to an already giant bureaucracy.This story even has a familiar subplot, the ‘dance of the lemons,’ in which the district shuffles problem personnel around -- usually to a troubled school in a poor area -- to avoid the task of booting them out the door.
Readers react to Rosa Brooks’ column on Hillary Clinton’s stance on prostitution -- and support of Eliot Spitzer. Margaret Daugherty writes:
Clinton’s inclusion of both Eliot Spitzer and his family in her expression of goodwill seems to me like empathy and good manners -- not evidence of some festering character defect. Wouldn’t it have been better just to print a statement saying, ‘Rosa Brooks stills hates Hillary Clinton; check this space periodically for updates’?