The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 88, No. 35, Ed. 1 Monday, February 4, 2008 Page: 4 of 10
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OPINION
THE BAYTOWN SUN
4
Monday, February 4,2008
Little said
Cheers
in ‘Union’
%
address
& Jeers
9
Muzzle that Bill
SEE WEST • PAGE 6
I
k
David Bloom
Managing Editor
Luke Hales
City Editor
M.A. Bengtson
Community member
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John Cornyn,
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1
In this time of strife among Democrats, it’s
good to know that so many of the nation’s
deepest political thinkers have the party’s
interests at heart. Writing in The Wall Street
Journal, former Reagan speechwriter Peggy
Noonan laments, “the Clintons are tearing the
(Democratic) Party apart. It will not be the
same after this.” True, the same column con-
tends that “George W. Bush destroyed the
Republican Party,” but that’s for another day.
In The Washington Post, Robert Novak
warns that the primary contest between
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama “is
fraught with peril for the Democratic Party
coalition because it threatens to alienate its
essential African-American component.” That
would break Novak’s adamantine heart. On
MSNBC, the brows of former Florida GOP
congressman Joe Scarborough and one-time
“morality czar” (and casino habitue) Bill
Bennett are furrowed permanently.
On the same network, virtually every pundit
so in racial, or, if you prefer, demographic,
terms. The Washington Post’s estimable
African-American columnist Eugene
Robinson started on the evening of the New
Hampshire primary. He wondered aloud if
Sen. Clinton’s surprise victory resulted from
the “Bradley effect,” i.e. white voters speak-
ing well of a black candidate but yielding to
racist impulses in the darkness of the voting
booth.
(Uh, oh — “darkness.” Does the word indi-
Washington and stage an intervention at the
National Press Club.... (W)e’ve gotten into a
situation where if you try to be fair to the
Clintons, if you try to be objective, if you try
to say, ‘Well, where’s the evidence of racism
in the Clinton campaign?’ you’re accused of
being a naive shill for the Clintons.”
But I’d also say this: Somebody needs to
put the Big Dog back on the porch. His
attacks on Obama are unbecoming in a for-
mer president; people are tired of the Clinton
melodrama; and the bigger he looms, the
smaller Hillary looks.
Send signed letters to:
David Bloom, The Baytown
Sun, P.O. Box 90, Baytown,
77522; fax them to (281) 427-
1880 or send an e-mail to
sunnews@baytownsun.com.
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Clifton E. “Cliff” Clements
Edit or/Pubi sher
Jim Finley
retired Managing Editor
Jay Esh bach
Community member
card! Hands were wrung. Lamentations filled
the air. Because as we all know, Jackson (who
supports Obama) exists in only one dimen-
sion — blackness — therefore any/all refer-
ences to his political career constitute bigotry.
Everybody else can spend hours parsing
racial demographics, but not Bill Clinton.
Except Jackson himself didn’t object; nei-
ther did Obama. I’m with Congressional
Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford, who told
Scarborough: “I really think the evidence-free
bias against the Clintons in the media borders
on mental illness. I mean, I think when Dr.
strued, is allf and all is identity. Every political Phil gets done with Britney, he ought to go to
statement constitutes an affirmation of group ‘ ‘ ‘ “
loyalty. “Speaking as an African-American
gay woman” or “As a long-married white
man...” That’s supposed to be the end of the
story. To disagree constitutes bigotry. No safe
metaphors exist.)
Everything about Obama’s personal story
stands in opposition to ethnic groupthink. It’s
a repudiation of Americanism, one he
denounces often. But (like most of us)
Obama’s not always been perfectly consistent.
He wasn’t in South Carolina. Many of his
supporters, particularly among the media,
want to have it both ways in pursuit of the
great goal of humiliating Hillary and Bill
Clinton. For the same reason Noonan and
I
■ ■
To Miri Arnit, the Israeli mathematics pro-
fessor whose program, Kidumatica, is deliver-
ing much-needed skills to the children of her
home country. Kidumatica educates hundreds
of students from the most economically disad-
vantaged parts of Israel. While this program is
in itself a good thing, the fact that kids from
25 nationalities are working together in har-
mony - including Jews and Arabs - gives
hope that with the success of this program
and others like it, perhaps future generations
can begin to heal the wounds that years of war
and strife have created.
Cheers and Jeers is a collection of quick
hits of praise and comments on local, state
and national issues compiled by The
Baytown Sun editorial board.
The Sun encourages readers to submit
their own cheers and jeers. Cheers and
Jeers is published every Monday. Send
submissions to sunnews@baytownsun.com.
To Jennifer Frazier, the Beach City resident
and Barbers Hill High School librarian who
has started a petition to give the name “Riley’s
Island” to the stretch of land where Riley Ann
Sawyers, the 2-year-old known for months as
“Baby Grace, ” was found dead. The petition
for “Riley’s Island” has gathered over 3,000
names since it went online. In the face of such
a truly horrific act, Frazier has found a way to
hopefiilly create a lasting memorial for Riley,
and to remind us all of the fragility of human
life in all its forms and ages.
Cheers are also in order for Dr. Jeffrey
Ackerman, who has led San Jacinto
Methodist Hospital since 2002. Ackerman is
stepping down from his position and heading
into retirement after making sure the hospital
has a clean bill of health; he helped ensure
that the hospital reached the top five percent
of those named in a Healthgrades study.
To Reggie Brewer, the Baytown banker who
is retiring after 46 years of caring for resi-
dent’s financial needs. Brewer has brought his
wisdom to several Baytown establishments,
including Citizens Bank and Trust, Baytown
State Bank, and Amegy Bank, but he has also
been an active part of the community as well,
serving as president of the Baytown/West
Chambers County Economic Development
Foundation and the Lee College Foundation,
and being a part of numerous other communi-
ty service organizations. Brewer will be
missed, both by his clients and by the groups
he gave his time and efforts to over the years.
Cheers:
To the combined efforts of the Robert E.
Lee and Ross S Sterling High School
American Sign Language students, who
recently spent a Saturday teaching the lan-
guage to 33 elementary school kids. This first
time event served both to give Baytown’s
younger students insight into the world of
ASL, as well as to provide funds for a trip to
Gallaudet University, the learning institution
focused on the education of the deaf. These
high school students may be opening the door
for these elementary kids into a love of not
just ASL, but languages in general.
We publish only original
material addressed to The
Baytown Sun bearing the
writer’s signature. An
address and phone number
not for publication should be
included. All letters and
guest columns are subject to
editing, and the Sun
reserves the right to refuse
to publish any submission.
WlAOW?
GcfT UNDINq
Novak are crying crocodile
tears, it’s a dangerously
divisive strategy.
Let’s pass over the ensuing
humbug over Clinton’s
MLK/LBJ remarks, the
“fairy tale” business and
surrogates’ references to
Obama’s youthful drug use.
(Drugs are an inherently
black problem? In the
USA? Who knew? Has
there been a presidential candidate since 1992
whose personal drug use wasn’t an issue?
OK, Bob Dole. Anybody else?) Harkening to
a theme pundits pushed since New v
Hampshire, MSNBC broke down South
Carolina’s exit polls by race even before actu-
al results came in. Every newspaper account I
read stressed Obama’s winning 80 percent of
the African-American vote.
On television, the usual talking heads —
who discussed the South Carolina primary did Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, Margaret
Carlson, et. al. — were partying like it was
1998 when the Monica Lewinsky story broke
and the Clinton presidency was presumed
DOA. So somebody sticks a camera in Bill
Clinton’s face, asks him an insulting question
and he reminds them Jesse Jackson won the
South Carolina primary twice, but never the
nomination.
That set off racial sensitivity alarms
throughout the media, and even certain nor-
mally more sensible precincts of the liberal
cate a hidden bias? A perverse need to associ- blogosphere. Bill Clinton had played the race
ate blackness with evil? Altogether too many T
impressionable college students have been
trained in this kind of linguistic alchemy,
much as they were once encouraged to find
hidden “symbolic” phalluses in the novels of
Jane Austen. Recently, The American
Prospect’s Web site entertained a passionate
debate about a columnist’s “racist” description
of Obama as “a fog of a man.” Fog, see, indi-
cates not frizziness or vague outlines, but
darkness, ergo...
At this level of absurdity, honest debate
becomes impossible. “Identity,” crudely con-
By now it’s clear that John
McCain’s “blasphemy” on conserva-
tive principles is making some con-
servatives consider “apostasy” on
Election Day — not voting
Republican.
A quick Google search shows such
terminology popping up in campaign
coverage, whether to describe the
intensity of conservative disaffection
with McCain’s assaults on baseline
conservatism (“McCain’s “apostasy”
on immigration, for example), or to
indicate mock-honor at, say, Mitt
Romney peeling the skin off a piece
of fried chicken before eating it —
“blasphemy here in the South,”
according to CNN.
For deeply rooted cultural reasons,
such terms serve as
metaphors in our
society. This helps
explain how it is
that President Bush,
in this week’s State
of the Union
address, could hold
up as an example to
the world how
“Republicans and
Democrats can
compete for votes
and cooperate for results at the same
time.”
I haven’t noticed much cooperation
over the last few decades, but ours is
a peaceable, if sharp-elbowed, politi-
cal phenomenon well worth showing
“them,” as Bush said. Of course, ?t
wasn’t entirely clear who Bush meant
by “them” — those he called “our
enemies” and “the terrorists,” or
those he called called “men and
women who are free.” It also wasn’t
clear what he meant by “enemies,”
either. And even as the president
reminded us, “We are engaged in the
defining ideological struggle of the
21st century,” he never defined the
ideology we struggle against. The
fact that “the terrorists oppose every
principle of humanity and decency
we hold dear” had to suffice.
Such vagueness marked his seventh
and final annual address as strangely
vacuous. Writing at the
Counterterrorism Blog, Andrew
Cochran elaborated on this theme,
contrasting the language of this
week’s address with those of the past.
In 2007, he wrote, Bush highlighted
the aggression of “Sunni extremists”
and “Shia extremists.” In 2006, he
warned against “radical Islam.” In
2008, the president merely decried
“assassins,” “bombs,” “extremists”
and “terrorists.” Why the fuzzy
focus? Why declare a “defining ideo-
logical struggle” without defining the
ideologies involved?
Among the principles Bush said we
hold dear, we would undoubtedly
include the freedom of religion.
Going back to Bush’s terminology,
which “terrorists” oppose this free-
dom? One answer is Al Qaeda and
the Taliban, which the president
pointed out we are still fighting in
Afghanistan. But so, recent events
confirm, does Afghanistan itself
oppose religious freedom, which the
president didn’t mention at all.
Or, rather, he mentioned
Afghanistan, but simply as a “young
democracy” where, thanks to the war
on jihadists waged by the United
States and its allies, the Afghan peo-
ple “arg looking to the future with
new hope.” Not Sayed Parwez
Kaambakhsh, of course. Kaambakhsh
is the 23-year-old journalist sen-
tenced to death last month by an
Afghan court for blasphemy. His
future is hardly hopeful, especially
since Afghanistan’s senate this week
endorsed his death sentence. (The
senate’s statement, Agence France-
Presse reports, was signed by senate
leader Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, “a
close ally of President Hamid
Karzai.”)
Bush couldn’t mention the
Kaambakhsh case without spoiling
the presidential narrative. What kind
of “young democracy” infused with
“new hope” sentences a citizen to
dea"th for “insulting Islam”? The
answer is a democracy that enshrines
Islamic law (Sharia). But confronting
the role of Sharia in Islamic societies
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Clements, Clifford E. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 88, No. 35, Ed. 1 Monday, February 4, 2008, newspaper, February 4, 2008; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1191134/m1/4/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.