Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 309, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 7, 2015 Page: 16 of 38
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OPINION
16A
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Denton Record-Chronicle
Denton Record-Chronicle
Pataki’s
populist
shtick still
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Published by Denton Publishing Co.,
a subsidiary of A.H. Belo Corporation
Founded from weekly newspapers,
the Denton Chronicle, established in 1882,
and the Denton Record, established in 1897.
Published daily as the Denton
Record-Chronicle since Aug. 3,1903.
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Bill Patterson
Publisher and CEO
Scott K. Parks
Managing Editor
Les Cockrell
Region Editor
Mark Finley
City Editor
Mariel Tarn-Ray
News Editor
PAST PUBLISHERS
William C. “Will” Edwards
1903-1927
Robert J. “Bob” Edwards
1927-1945
Riley Cross
1945-1970
Vivian Cross
1970-1986
Fred Patterson
1986-1999
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1 SMITH.
keep thinking we’re done with George
Pataki — but like an order of bad clams,
he keeps coming back up on me.
The three-term Republican governor of a
famously blue state seems like a serious 2016
presidential contender on paper — until you
read the fine print.
Pataki had a promising start. He beat
Democratic icon Mario Cuomo in 1994. He
cut income taxes 25
percent and trimmed
other taxes as well. In
his first two years in of-
fice, spending went
down 2.5 percent.
If you had stopped
the Pataki show there,
he’d be the next Rea-
gan.
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Editorials published in the Denton Record-Chronicle
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Caitlyn’s rollout masterful
ahbelo.com NYSE symbol: AHC
f you’re a student of public relations, you
had to be impressed.
The rollout of Bruce to Caitlyn has
been handled with such mastery that you’d
think we live in a country that long ago shed
any deep hostility toward those who don’t
easily fit into boxes marked “male” or “fe-
male.”
But in many workplaces, I’ll believe it
when I see it.
You think it was hard for people to get
their heads around the idea of homosexual-
ity. This is harder.
The websites are hard to look at.
You wonder whether some of these folks
— the plastic surgeons charging top dollar
for surgical transformations backed up by
pictures that aren’t quite as tasteful as those
in Vanity Fair — are taking advantage of
confused and unhappy people whose confu-
sion and unhappiness may or may not be
cured by spending their life savings on a sex
change.
Are they insisting on adequate counsel-
ing, on a trial period, following the recom-
mendations of reputable groups?
Who is to know?
It is the essence of the right to privacy, the
constitutional source of protection for indi-
vidual sexual autonomy, that these are deci-
sions individuals should be free to make by
themselves — free, that is, of government in-
trusion.
So the very notion of government regula-
tion of sexual identity — indeed, of the most
fundamental aspects of that identification —
smacks of something even worse than the
online ads for easy financing of your surger-
I
Jonah
Goldberg
Editorial
Similarly, if Napo-
leon had quit before in-
vading Russia, he’d be
remembered very differently, too.
It’s a journalistic cliche to say that when a
Republican lurches left he’s “growing in of-
fice.” Woodrow Wilson once said that every
politician either grows or swells when he en-
ters office.
Time to overhaul
cybersecurity
From Diane Sawyer to Vanity Fair, it’s
been 5-star but taste-
ful, if you know what I
mean, which is exactly
what you’d expect
from Alan Nierob, the
longtime Hollywood
pro who is reportedly
running the show.
But this is just the
beginning. By many
painful accounts, it
can get harder, and
playing it out in public,
while tempting at first, has been a source of
anguish for some who chose that route. I’m
thinking of the sportswriter for the Los An-
geles Times, who ended up killing himself af-
ter a painful public journey.
Of course, Bruce Jenner is a Kardashian
by marriage, which changes all the rules
when it comes to what belongs in public.
The miracle is how tasteful it all was.
If he wants to play this out in public, he
knows what he’s getting into and how to nav-
igate his way, and it is indeed likely to be a lot
easier for him than almost anyone else.
Last month, I wrote about a little fourth-
grader in Virginia, a transgender girl whose
father pleaded unsuccessfully with the
school board not to overturn the policy that
allows her to use the girls’ lavatory.
How do you think this girl will be treated
when she walks into the boys’ room, past the
urinals?
It’s not an experience Caitlyn is ever likely
to be forced to endure, and I was glad to see
that OSHA, the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration, just took the oppo-
site view.
Pataki did both and for so long, conserva-
tives felt he should have come with a Viagra-
like warning label: If this apostasy lasts for
more than one campaign, consult a physi-
cian.
t should be apparent to everyone by now that our
nation’s cybersecurity is in great need of repair.
Almost daily we read about hackers — many based
in China — who break into computer networks at will to
steal identification information of millions of Americans.
Most of us probably feel fairly secure from the threat of
direct attack by foreign military forces. We recognize that
the U.S. will likely long remain a favored target of groups
that plan small strikes in ongoing terrorism campaigns,
but it’s highly unlikely that any major force will put “boots
on the ground” here.
And since the Cold War ended, most Americans no
longer worry about military attacks from the air.
Such possibilities have always been considered realistic
threats against our nation’s security. Through the years,
we’ve spent billions on defense — whether to bolster our
forces to successfully repel attack or to enhance our ability
to launch retaliatory strikes.
Today, however, we are beginning to recognize that
strong forces on land, in the air and at sea may no longer
be enough to protect our nation’s borders.
One border — the one that just about anyone can in-
filtrate with a good computer and the right knowledge —
appears to be woefully under protected.
The data breaches reported thus far are attacks against
our nation as surely as a missile strike. They have targeted
federal agencies and other offices and put highly confi-
dential information at risk
While some officials believe the breaches are motivated
by financial goals — most of us are well-versed in modern
threats to our bank accounts and other personal informa-
tion — some fear that such attacks will ultimately provide
information that could be used to impersonate or black-
mail federal employees.
Up until now, the government’s response has been far
from satisfactory.
Even when available, security upgrades have often
been neglected. The IRS, for example, failed to imple-
ment dozens of security upgrades to its computer systems
before hackers used an IRS website to steal tax informa-
tion from 104,000 taxpayers, a government investigator
told Congress recently.
There’s no way to know if such measures could have
prevented this and other breaches, but access would have
certainly been much more difficult.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard
Burr, R-N.C., said last week that the government must
overhaul its cybersecurity defenses.
We agree, and we believe that doing so should be
made an immediate priority. Americans need to demand
that their leaders begin to take cybersecurity threats more
seriously.
It is no longer enough to report that a breach has oc-
curred — we must to find a way to prevent these attacks
by sealing this vital section of our nation’s borders.
We need to change our strategy and get serious about
outsmarting foreign hackers.
Most of us don’t lose much sleep thinking that we
could wake up to find foreign forces camped in our front
yard, but we probably give little thought to the fact that
they may already be inside our computer systems.
They could take us and never fire a shot.
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In advance of his 1998 re-election bid, he
asked the state Legislature to increase
spending 8 percent.
He flip-flopped on ending rent control in
New York City, on blocking the state takeover
of Long Island Lighting Co. and on sending
his kids to public school.
The defenestration of his principles was
so spectacular, even the editors of the New
York Times were impressed.
They endorsed him for re-election in
1998, praising his “progressive and inclusive
attitude.”
The Cato Institute’s fiscal report card
dubbed Pataki a “liberal big spender.”
“Pataki-land has become a place that sells
out on everything,” George Marlin, a Pataki
appointee to the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey, told National Review’s John
Miller in 2005. “The governor is going to
leave the Republican Party intellectually
bankrupt and the state fiscally bankrupt.”
When Pataki finally left office, New York
Post state editor Fred Dicker wrote that “Pa-
taki broke virtually every political promise he
ever made.”
He also noted how incredibly lazy Pataki
Susan
Estrich
les.
Of course the magazines will sell, and so-
cial media is breaking records, and Bmce is
getting his own special.
It is not easy to keep up with the Kar-
dashians, which is not to say that they are
worth following, or that their “brand” adds
value to the effort to secure equality for peo-
ple whose wiring most of us just don’t un-
derstand.
I keep thinking of that little girl in Virgin-
ia, and I worry about the Caitlyn cover being
waved in her face. It’s not likely to be a
friendly gesture; she’s not likely the leader
you’d pick.
was.
According to friends, Pataki worked
about 15 hours a week.
“He held no more than three Cabinet
meetings during his entire 12 years in office,”
Dicker reported.
It would be normal for a three-term gov-
ernor to downplay his last two years as a
lame duck in office.
SUSANESTRICH’S column is distrib-
uted by Creators Syndicate Inc.
Letters to the editor
Debunked claim
From the Washington Times: In a major
blow to environmental activists, the Obama
administration said Thursday that the con-
troversial drilling technique known as frack-
ing has not caused any widespread impacts
on drinking water, removing a key argument
among those who want to limit U.S. oil and
gas development.
The Environmental Protection Agency
study, while identifying “potential vulnera-
bilities” in the fracking process that could af-
fect water supplies, debunked the claim that
the drilling practice is contaminating drink-
ing water all across the country and repre-
sents a fundamental danger to clean water.
There. Maybe now we can have a reason-
able discussion.
Pataki plays the movie backward. The
first two years are all he talks about, as if the
final 10 never happened.
That’s why his populist shtick rings so
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false.
In his announcement speech last week,
he said that if elected president, “The first
thing I would do is ban members of Congress
from ever lobbying. If you serve one day, you
are banned, go home.”
That sounds great, though how a presi-
dent has the power to do anything of the sort
is beyond me.
He barked at Washington politicians,
“From now on, you will live under the same
rules and laws we do ... no special rules for
the powerful.”
Again, great stuff, but a bit hard to take
from the guy who vowed to sell off New York
state’s fleet of planes and then, once elected,
used them as his private airline.
I am trying hard not rule out anyone in
the GOP field prematurely.
So far, only Donald Trump has been too
heavy a lift.
Trump sees the presidential race as self-
marketing opportunity, a way to extend his
run as a reality-TV star.
He’s a more plausible candidate than, say,
Honey Boo Boo, but that’s mostly because of
constitutional age limits.
Pataki vexes me for similar reasons. The
pro-choice, liberal Republican has virtually
no chance of getting the nomination. But lots
of people run as vanity projects. I wish they
wouldn’t, but it’d be unfair to single out Pata-
ki for it.
But most vanity candidates also tend to
run to promote their core convictions. For in-
stance, many believe South Carolina Sen.
Lindsey Graham is running so he can push
his foreign policy vision.
Pataki is flipping that on its head, too.
He’s pretending to have core convictions just
so he can run for the sake of running.
Where did all those killing machines
come from? Did a few individuals who could
pass background checks purchase and dis-
tribute these weapons? Were they pur-
chased at a killing machine show where no
checks are required? We may never know
because of the restrictions placed on law en-
forcement agencies by the killing machine
lobby.
Paul Knopick,
Denton
Killing machines
One hundred and eighteen handguns
and an AK-47 were recovered from the
thugs after the Waco biker brawl. That’s 119
killing machines wielded by a group of obvi-
ously sociopathic individuals.
As America moves past its shock and out-
rage at this unspeakable event, I believe we
should focus our anger toward those groups
who have consistently refused to allow any
kind of sane restrictions to be placed on the
purchase and ownership of killing ma-
chines. The NRA and the politicians who
have succumbed to its bullying tactics share
in the responsibility for this carnage.
The Second Amendment was never
meant to allow sociopathic criminals to easi-
ly obtain, keep and bear killing machines.
And what have Texas politicians done about
this — open carry and campus carry laws.
At some point Americans will wake up
and say enough is enough. But how many
Wacos, Sandy Hooks, Virginia Techs and
Columbines will it take before sanity returns
to America?
This day in history: June 7
Today is Sunday, June 7,
the 158th day of 2015. There
are 207 days left in the year.
On June 7, 1965, the U.S.
Supreme Court, in Griswold vs.
Connecticut, recognized a con-
stitutional right to privacy as it
struck down, 7-2, a Connecticut
law used to prosecute a Planned
Parenthood clinic in New Haven
for providing contraceptives to
married couples.
In 1769, frontiersman Dan-
iel Boone first began to explore
present-day Kentucky.
In 1892, Homer Plessy, a
“Creole of color,” was fined for re-
fusing to leave a whites-only car
of the East Louisiana Railroad.
(Ruling on his case, the U.S. Su-
preme Court upheld “separate
but equal” racial segregation, a
concept it renounced in 1954.)
In 1929, the sovereign state
of Vatican City came into exis-
tence as copies of the Lateran
Treaty were exchanged in Rome.
In 1942, the World War II
Battle of Midway ended in a de-
cisive victory for American forc-
es over the Imperial Japanese.
In 1954, British mathemati-
cian, computer pioneer and
code breaker Alan Turing died at
age 41, an apparent suicide. (Tu-
ring, convicted in 1952 of “gross
indecency” for a homosexual re-
lationship, was posthumously
pardoned in 2013.)
Gary Ardis,
Oak Point
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JONAH GOLDBERG is a fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute and a
senior editor of National Review. His
column is distributed by Tribune Content
Agency.
— The Associated Press
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 309, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 7, 2015, newspaper, June 7, 2015; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124824/m1/16/?q=%22~1~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .