OCR Text |
Show DAILY A6 Friday, February 22, 2008 HERALD BIWIAL H BOARD EDITORIAL President & Publisher Randy Wright, Executive Editor Jim Tynen, Editorial Page Editor Craig Dennis, IN OUR VIEW Last word on 7 I .. Buttars llap ou have to wonder What the best course of action would be for state Sen. Chris Buttars. Buttars used the racially charged term "lynch mob." The history of hate crimes against blacks is indeed a point of national shame. And the senator was again being thoughtless in comparing a modern annoyance to terrible crimes. But that doesn't disqualify Buttars from using an easily understood metaphor. If we let politics dictate language, we won't be able to address the problems facing us, much less solve them. No person of any race should be disqualified from using a powerful term. Lynch mobs have attacked many kinds of people, not just blacks. For example, the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, was the victim of a lynch mob. Does any racial or ethnic group that suffers injustice get an automatic copyright on a the particular form of suffering with which it has been inflicted? The population of Ireland dropped 20 percent during the potato famine of 1845-5Does that mean only those of Irish descent can use "famine" as a figure of speech? The bottom line is that a couple of stupid remarks are being used as a tool against a lawmaker who is seen as an Salt Lake County Republican Parly Chairman James Evans commented astutely that "people decide who's a racist and who's not based on their agenda." He should know; Evans failed to get an apology from Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson two On Tuesday, a Senate debate on an "ugly" bill managed to include references to babies, including dividing them, as King Solomon threatened to do. We have criticized the Legislature often, but we've never thought they ever literally wanted to cut babies in half. So we're pretty sure they were speaking metaphorically. In this context, Buttars, Jordan, blurted out, "This baby is black, I'll tell you. This is a dark and ugly thing.": It's reasonable to conclude he was referring to the bill, not a real baby. When it dawned on Buttars that his remarks could be taken as a racial slur, he apologized. That didn't settle the issue, and some have demanded his resignation. It should hardly be necessary to mention that the word "black" has many meanings and connotations, but apparently a reminder is needed now and then. Look at the Oxford English :. Dictionary. Its definitions for the word include "having dark or deadly purposes." "malignant." "baneful." "disastrous" and "sinister." You don't want to be followed by a black cloud or get a black mark on your record. Neither do you want to be blacklisted or blackballed. Black Tuesday Oct. 29, 1929 saw n the stock market crash (as it also years ago when that did on Black Monday and Black politico ripped Evans and oth" ers for their "slavish" support of Thursday.) is a crime; a black Blackmail President Bush. widow is a dangerous spider. You Let's put this flap in perspective: If every lawmaker who ever don't want to get hit by a blackdid something stupid resigned, the jack, be thrown into the Black Hole of Calcutta or become infectLegislature wouldn't be able to ed with Black Death, otherwise muster a quorum. But the worst part of all this known as bubonic plague. Neither is that our common language is do you want to encounter a blackguard, a blackshirt, a member of being parsed and loaded with pothe Black Hand, or even someone litical correctness to the point of in a black mood. silliness. In short, it's not unreasonable As for Buttars, one must wonder whether a man who so often to suppose that Buttars wasn't thinking racially, but that he let a puts his foot in his mouth is cut common association pop into his out for politics. His remark was mind and then, unfortunately, into awkward and weird, and bound his mouth. to cause trouble. It showed a certain lack of political sensitivHaving admitted his blunder, Buttars could have shut up. Or he ity even if he wanted to make a could have commented on the inlinguistic defense. cident intelligently. He decided to Fortunately, hypersensitivity take another tack. He told a news- about race seems to be waning with each succeeding generapaper about the vicious he was getting and noted that tion. Every year, race matters less and less to most Americans. "they started getting meaner and meaner and meaner to the point it With luck, we will move on to a is just a hate lynch mob." society where when somebody This reignited the furor. say s "black," listeners will think of dozens of things, but skin color NAACP executive committeeman Ed Lewis said he was furious that will be far down the list. w GEORGE F.WILL 'Fairness' may be next obstacle for Clinton from complaints by her Judging Hillary Clinton considers that Barack Obama has been Wafted close to the pinnacle of e politics by an updraft from the conti-nentwid- MEDIA VOICES Time for 'Fidel lite' From the Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008: 19 wheel to his little brother, Raul. The younger Castro doesn't go for his brother's famous act, and he's reportedly more open to economic reform and less enamored of the flaming socialist agenda pushed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But Raul Castro is running Cuba in the same sense that a substitute e classteacher runs a room, and everyone knows it. So don't get too excited about Fidel's announcement that he's officially resigning after nearly half a century at the top. "I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief," he said in a statement posted Tuesday on the state-runewspaper, Granma. The National Assembly, which meets Sunday to fill those posts, is now free to elect Raul or someone else, we suppose to pretend 4th-grad- n If anything, Raul's tenure attests to the strength of the revolutionary institutions, particularly the military and the Communist Party. Though food and housing remain scarce and wages remain low, the changing of the guard hasn't led to the unrest and instability the U.S. government and Miami's Cuban exile community had hoped for. Fidel always blamed Cuba's economic troubles on Washington, and Cubans never found it hard to believe, given the U.S. restrictions on trade, travel and money sent to relatives on the island. "The adversary to be defeated is MtfTAM&ff- WE...MY o s, KXKftW... we GOCTOR j u . duty-boun- d dependent judgment of the public good independent of "local prejudices" or "local purposes." Burkean superdelegates among the Senate does this with the filibuster, which enables an intense minority to Democrats? What fun. slow or stymie a majority, at least for Nothing, however, will assuage Clinton supporters' sense of injustice if the awhile, Caucuses are apt to have (in the upstart Obama supplants her. Their, and her, sense of entitlement is encapjargon of liberal jurisprudence) a "disparate impact": Some kinds or classes sulated in her constant invocations of of people will be more inclined than her "35 years" of "experience." Well, others to want to, or be able to, partici- she is 60. She left Yale Law School at pate. Caucuses might, therefore, skew age 25. Evidently she considers everyparticipation patterns toward the more thing she has done since school, from disher years at Little Rock's Rose law leisured, affluent and educated firm to her good fortune with cattle proportionately Obama voters. That futures, as presidentially relevant exprobably troubles the easily troubled consciences of liberals for whom perience. The president who came to office equality is the sovereign good. One solution is for them to salve their conwith the most glittering array of exsciences by demoting equality. periences had served 10 years in the The Democrats' ultimate nightmare House of Representatives, then beis that the delegate selection process came minister to Russia, then served 10 years in the Senate, then four ends in a virtual tie after Clinton has years as secretary of state (during regained momentum in, say, two of the last three large primaries Texas a war that enlarged the nation by 33 and Ohio (March 4) then Pennsylvania percent), then was minister to Britain. Then, in 1856, James Buchanan was (April 22). Speaker Nancy Pelosi is surely right that delegates selected in elected president and in just one term defiance of party rules Michigan's secured a strong claim to the rank as America's worst president. Abraham and Florida's should not be disLincoln, the inexperienced former one-terpositive. So superdelegates party congressman, had an easy act to dignitaries, most of them elected officials would have to be. What ethic follow. should guide their decisions? Should each of them vote as did their state George Will writes for the or congressional district? Or for the Washington Post Writers Group. m gnmtny.com VEFOUfjMHE PERFECT ' Now heraldex-tra.co- m: VP..HES MILITARY HISPANIC ANPHEU Why can't Richard Dawkins understand what Stanley Fish is talking about? Paul F. Campos answers that question I Sixty years ago, a sociologist predicted the decline of the family, and Western civilization. Rod Dreher explains how the two are MAKE VOU WOK WONOWVBRANTJ connected. I Bonnie Erbe looks into how inflation and immigration are related. I A former intelligence official imagines how sees the war on terror now. Barack Obama is singing the blues, and America needs to hear it, Stanley Crouch says. and install one like ours. 5WS LCO'5 f YOUm (y&WI'MTTW ft PIACS U TDSWV, BtWEFCRftmLi- - W4M LONG HAUL AHEAP MALLARD FILLMORE Garry Trudeau OrHm. GUe&lHIGHT GOT A d Nothing, however, will Edmund Burke? On Nov. 3, 1774, Burke, an intelClinton supporters' lectual assuage founder of modern conservasense of injustice if the address to tism, delivered a thank-yoit, perhaps who, upon people hearing upstart Obama supplants wished they had not done what he was her. Their, and her, sense of thanking them for. They had elected him to represent them in the House entitlement is encapsulated of Commons. He told them he was to represent the national in her constant invocations of interest, as he understood that. He said he owed them not obedience but his in'35 years' of experience." extremely strong; however, we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century," Fidel wrote in his resignation message. The talk always made the daily struggle easier for Cubans to swallow. President Bush only reinforced that mindset Tuesday, insisting again that the U.S. won't lift the sanctions that squeeze the Cuban people until they get rid of their government DOONESBURY 5 simple-minde- to be president. has changed in the f I ot much 111 months since an ailing I 1 Fidel Castro passed the : swoon of millions of Democrats and much of the media brought on by his Delphic utterances such as "We are the change." But disquisitions on fairness are unpersuasive coming from someone from Illinois or Arkan- sas whose marriage enabled her to treat New York as her home, and the Senate as an entry-levelectoral office (only 12 of today's senators have been elected to no other office) and a steppingstone to the presidency. F word that is central The four-lettto Democrats' rhetoric and to discord is being baneverywhere "fair" died about. Clinton would be ahead in the delegate count if Obama had not won about twice as many delegates as she in caucuses, so Clinton implies that it is not quite fair to consider delegates accumulated in caucuses as Significant as those won in primaries. Obama says it would not be fair for "superdelegates," or delegates chosen by Michigan's and Florida's renegade primaries, to decide the nomination. Clinton has a small piece of a point, but misses the important point. Caucuses are, indeed, less purely "democratic" than primaries. That is their virtue. They are inconvenient, requiring commitments of time and energy that are more apt to be made by especially interested voters. Thus caucuses filter out, disproportionately, the lightly committed and least informed, which is not cause for dismay. Popular sovereignty is simple in theory government by consent of the governed but should not be in practice. It need not mean government by adding machine, the mere adding up of numbers. A wise polity also has mechanisms for measuring, accommodating and even rewarding intensity. The loose-canno- candidate who won the most votes nationally? Or should they think like " I RH0U5. TK U WW OF ft HOME I TMSTMIN6 ft 601 W WHISMA9- - WTTH TT I R j Bruce Tinsley V? 1 IUHAT FOR- - l F jj hut zrytpowoF Wflet& tycoon w&fims, THINK fW WO hi MM TE Eg PEAL.... |