Opinion: In today’s pages: On the Bush-Obama cusp
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The Times’ editorial page concludes its series on the Bush presidency with an editorial cataloging the outgoing chief’s few successes and many failures -- such as his alienating go-it-alone response to post-9/11 terror policy and his self-fulfilling prophecy that Iraq would become the focus of the fight against terrorism.
Like the war that came to define it, Bush’s presidency conceivably could be viewed more favorably by historians than it is by the nation that looks forward expectantly to his retirement on Tuesday. But our verdict today is that, despite some important accomplishments, the Bush years were a time of squandered opportunities, shocking abuse of power and cynical abandonment of both legal principles and historical values.
The page also has some more to say about Jessica’s Law in the wake of a report by a state panel that the law -- 2006’s Proposition 83 -- doesn’t work. We don’t want to say ‘We told you so,’ but -- wait. Actually, we do want to say ‘We told you so.’ Because we did, here, here, here and here.
But when being right isn’t enough, we can try for a bailout. USC Annenberg School of Journalism Director Geneva Overholser and former USC Annenberg School for Communication professor and former dean Geoffrey Cowan offer some ideas on how the government could help the newspaper industry, or at least journalism, catch up with the rest of the world.
Joe Hicks offers his take on the Oakland outrage against the BART shooting. And Gustavo Arellano fits Rick Warren into the long tradition of Orange County conservative evangelical Bible-thumping.
When Warren endorsed Proposition 8 last year, and seemingly endorsed bombing Iran when he told Sean Hannity that it was fine to punish ‘evildoers,’ he shed his sheep’s clothing and bared the conservative fangs long associated with Orange County, much to the detriment of his ecumenical standing.
Arellano says Warren ‘has the chance to redeem Orange County as a place not of avarice but of altruism, and to show that evangelical Christianity can come free of politicking and show genuine concern for all.’