Opinion: In today’s pages: Britney, Obama and the Boy Scouts
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Times writer Jay A. Fernandez mulls over letting his son join the homophobic Boy Scouts, and contributing editor Max Boot welcomes a tough guy like John McCain into the White House. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Q. Nomani shames the media into leaving Britney Spears alone, and Jonah Goldberg confronts Barack Obama’s post-racial rhetoric with American realities:
‘Bill Clinton: Obama’s White Half Won Maine,’ read the headline on the humor site Scrappleface this week. ‘Obama gets to play both sides of the race card,’ a fictional Bill Clinton told the site. ‘I told you he won South Carolina because he’s black, like Jesse Jackson. So, to be consistent, I’d have to say he won Maine because he’s white like Michael Dukakis.’There’s more than a little truth here. It seems that Barack Obama can win blacks and that he can win whites; where he has trouble, electorally speaking, is winning blacks and whites.
The editorial board expresses outrage at Berkeley’s attempt to muzzle Marine recruiters, and applauds the imminent peace deal between studios and striking writers. The board urges military prosecutors to throw out evidence obtained by waterboarding, and condemns the White House for refusing to deem it illegal:
Pentagon officials say they’re confident that they have enough unclassified, incontrovertible evidence to prove Mohammed’s guilt without resorting to any coerced testimony. They’d better be right. Otherwise, the trial will fail at its most important task: to show the world that the 9/11 terrorists were not noble freedom fighters but common criminals who committed mass murder. If prosecutors cannot make that case without secret evidence or testimony tainted by abuse, they will dishonor U.S. justice and our cause.
Readers weigh in on Joel Stein’s column on Obamaphilia. Glenn Backes writes:
I am weary of columnists who comment on the candidates’ styles rather than review their policies (‘Urkel with a better tailor’). This is now a protracted race for the Democratic nomination. The news media have the time and responsibility to bore us with the actual details of each candidate’s position.