Other Views

From The Associated Press

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the U.S. and abroad

Chicago Sun-Times

On the presidential election and race:

If and when Sen. Barack Obama is elected president of the United States, we hope he will pull a greenback from his wallet, wave it in the air and say with pride, “I don’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills!”

But not now. Not yet.

To say so then will be an expression of pride in all America. We as a nation will have beaten back bigotry to the point that a black man, judged by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin, has been elected president.

But to say so now is to play on race rather than rise above it, intentionally or not. Sen. John McCain, though he has said some silly things about Obama of late, calls it playing the race card, and that’s a fair complaint. ...

We’re also pretty sure McCain has been sounding desperate, mocking Obama as a “celebrity” like Paris Hilton and as a biblical prophet like Moses.

But Obama really should retire that “dollar bill” schtick.

The first debate between the candidate, when we can hope they will spar on matters of substance, is scheduled for Sept. 26.

It can’t come soon enough. ...

On the Net: www.sun-times.com

Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio

On the global AIDS bill:

It was the right thing to do. And if, by chance, it results in America’s reputation getting a boost around the world, so much the better.

But the $48 billion global AIDS bill passed by a bipartisan vote in Congress and signed into law by President Bush isn’t about public relations. It’s about our nation’s humanity, that which sets us apart from most others. As we’ve shown time and time again, we care about the downtrodden, about children dying of diseases for which there are cures, about the poor falling through the cracks. ...

Americans who question the expenditure of such a large amount of money at a time of record budget deficits and a rising national debt should not ignore the fact that nations in throes of death and destruction are easy prey for terrorist organizations that have vowed to bring down the United States.

But beyond the geopolitical considerations, the most powerful nation in the world cannot sit idly by while millions of poverty-ridden people in Africa and other underdeveloped countries perish because of a lack of medicine and preventative care. ...

On the Net: http://tinyurl.com/5qr9ov

Los Angeles Times

On the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

Even when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did the right thing by the gray wolves of the northern Rockies, it managed to do the wrong thing. A 13-year effort to reintroduce the wolf to the region has been an extraordinary success, with the count increasing from an initial 66 to a stable and growing population of more than 1,500.

Numbers like those clearly invited a call for taking the wolves off the endangered species list. But instead of just delisting them in March, the federal agency virtually abandoned them, allowing the three states where most are found ?— Wyoming, Idaho and Montana — to devise management plans that were more about hunting the wolves than protecting them. Their numbers would have had to shrink to 300 before the federal government would step in again, in essence unraveling millions of dollars worth of reintroduction work.

After environmentalists sued, a federal judge restored full endangered species status to the wolves last month. U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy found that the Fish and Wildlife Service hadn’t followed its own rules for delisting the wolves and making sure they would thrive. ...

It shouldn’t take continual lawsuits to get the Fish and Wildlife Service to fulfill this central mission. ...

On the Net: http://tinyurl.com/6nh57

New York Post

On Sen. Ted Stevens:

The poster boy for GOP pork, overspending and self-indulgence is finally facing the music: Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican, was indicted ... on seven felony counts of failing to report gifts.

The indictment — to which Stevens pleaded not guilty, alleges that he steered federal contracts to VECO Corp. in exchange for over $250,000 in unreported gifts and services, including extensive work on his Alaska home. Last year, VECO’s former CEO pleaded guilty to related bribery charges.

In fact, Stevens had become an embarrassment to his party long before. ...

A longtime Appropriations Committee member, Stevens is perhaps second only to Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) in steering taxpayer-funded goodies to his state. Since 1999, Alaska has won $3 billion in federal earmarks, for which Stevens proudly takes credit.

In 2006, Stevens’ $220 million “bridge to nowhere” became a symbol of what the GOP majority had become bloated with out-of-control pork-barrel spending. The money was to build a bridge from mainland Alaska to an island of 50 inhabitants. ...

With a primary on Aug. 26, the best thing he can do, both for the people of Alaska and for the GOP, is resign his seat (or, at the very least, agree not to run again).

It’s tough for Republicans to claim that the Democrats don’t deserve to keep the majority because they haven’t achieved anything, true as the charge may be, when the GOP’s senior-most member is a walking reminder of the corruption voters sent packing only two years ago.

On the Net: www.nypost.com