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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Murtha will be remembered for 'pork'
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), center, answers a reporter's question. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

 

Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.) is being hailed for his public service and military dedication. But over his long tenure, Murtha was also a consummate dealmaker in Washington.
 
Murtha died Monday at age 77. The decorated Vietnam combat veteran reportedly developed an infection after doctors at the National Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Md., inadvertently cut his intestine during gall bladder surgery.
 
First elected in 1974, Murtha was Pennsylvania’s longest-serving House lawmaker. He was a gruff, physically imposing man who mastered backroom politics and was instrumental in getting Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) elected as the country’s first female speaker of the House in 2007.
 
A retired Marine, Murtha feared neither presidents nor generals. This teetotaling son of a gas station owner made himself into an influential force to be reckoned with in Congress. He voted in 2002 in favor of invading Iraq. But his opposition to the war in 2005 was a turning point, due to his expertise in military affairs and the respect of colleagues in both parties.
 
As the senior Democrat on defense appropriations, Murtha showered his Johnstown-area district with taxpayer-funded projects. One watchdog group estimated that he brought $2 billion back to his district over the years.
 
Murtha’s efforts unquestionably boosted the local economy and created jobs in a region hit hard by the decline of the mining and steel industries. But the state’s “King of Pork” played the game of federal earmarks to wasteful excess.
 
Equally troubling was the way lobbyists with ties to Murtha, and their clients, enjoyed unusual success in obtaining government contracts. He defended his actions as always trying to help his constituents.
 
Murtha was a dominant force in bringing home federal aid for his district and his state. But his abuse of that process tainted the end of a long career dedicated to public service.
Posted by Inquirer Editorial Board @ 3:06 PM  Permalink | 1 comment
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Enterprise is key in space exploration
Space travel as depicted in TV's "Star Trek" reruns might be more likely to occur one day with President Obama's plans to let private industry take the lead in U.S. manned-flight efforts.

 

President Obama’s decision not to spend any more money on a rocket program to return Americans to the moon isn’t a stab to the heart of all those who crave the day when space travel as depicted in Star Trek reruns becomes reality.
 
The course Obama is plotting could still take us there. It’s just that Obama, ever the pragmatist, has decided there is a better, less expensive way. In this economy, that would be wise. But it will be hard to convince lawmakers who fear the new direction will cost their constituents jobs.
 
Obama has decided to shut down the over-budget Constellation program, which began after President George W. Bush set a goal six years ago to return to the moon by 2020 and later put a man on Mars. From the beginning, the cost was daunting. More than $9 billion has been spent, but the project keeps getting further and further behind schedule.
 
An advisory panel of experts appointed by Obama last year has recommended scrapping America’s traditional model for space exploration. Instead, NASA would contract with private companies to develop vehicles and conduct missions with the space agency providing oversight.
 
In addition to Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, some new companies are ready to take advantage of the new model, including Blue Origin, a space tourism company founded by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos; Space Exploration Technologies, headed by PayPal founder Elon Musk; and Sierra Nevada Corp., which designs and makes spacecraft components.
 
To get there from here, Obama wants to shut down Constellation, which will mean spending $2.5 million to pay off the companies building the Ares I and Ares V rockets. He also wants to increase NASA’s current annual budget of nearly $19 billion by $6 billion over five years, which would allow the private contracts.
 
But significant savings would be achieved by ending the expensive Constellation program and proceeding with plans to mothball the 29-year-old space-shuttle fleet this year. That should be done; each launch of an ancient shuttle has engineers, not to mention crew members’ families, holding their breath in worry.
 
The plan five years ago was for a next-generation vehicle to be available soon after the shuttles were retired. Without shuttles, Americans will have to hitch a ride with the Russians to the International Space Station. But there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, the ISS is supposed to foster international cooperation.
 
In fact, one wonders why Obama, who has made improved foreign relations one of his signature goals, didn’t take an international, rather that entrepreneurial, approach to building an advanced spacecraft. China and Japan, with fledgling space programs, might have enlisted.
 
And it might not be any worse for the president to sell that idea to Congress than it will be to get it to go along with his privatization plans. Congressmen in Florida, Alabama, and Texas vow to fight the loss of thousands of jobs in those states related to NASA’s current manned-flight programs.
 
Maybe it’s Mission Impossible reruns, rather than Star Trek, that Obama will need to watch for inspiration in this fight.
Posted by Inquirer Editorial Board @ 4:00 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Super win for New Orleans
New Orleans Saints fans celebrate the Saints' 31-17 NFL football Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

Perhaps that underappreciated philosopher, Kim Kardashian, said it best: “New Orleans deserves this.”

The reality TV star is dating running back Reggie Bush of the New Orleans Saints, who won the Super Bowl Sunday night. The victory came four years and five months after Hurricane Katrina almost wiped the city off the map.
 

The Saints’ only championship in their 43-year history is emblematic of New Orleans’ recovery. When residents had reason to give up, their spirit prevailed. They rebuilt their homes and their lives.
 

Katrina had damaged severely the Saints’ stadium, the Superdome, where thousands sought refuge from the storm. The team was forced to play “home” games in 2005 in San Antonio and Baton Rouge. People questioned whether the team would ever return to New Orleans.
 

»  More Super win for New Orleans

Posted by Inquirer editorial board @ 2:00 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
Monday, February 8, 2010
Chat with Allen M. Hornblum about William "Cowboy" Barnes

Posted by Inquirer Editorial Board @ 8:19 AM  Permalink | 1 comment
Monday, February 8, 2010
Let everyone serve
Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, accompanied by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, rear, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010, before the House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Defense Department's fiscal 2011 budget. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Now that the military’s top brass has given its support to repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, the ban against gays serving openly in the armed forces should be lifted as quickly as possible.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that repealing the ban was “the right thing to do.”
 

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told the committee that it was no longer a matter of if the anti-gay policy should be repealed, but when.
 

The advocacy of the military leaders, although measured, is what has been missing from the debate and should carry weight to help settle the issue finally.
 

»  More Let everyone serve

Posted by Inquirer editorial board @ 2:00 AM  Permalink | 1 comment
Monday, February 8, 2010
Gov. Christie sets a new tone
Gov. Christie speaking at his first cabinet meeting on Thursday. In office two weeks, he has been open about cutting costs.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Gov. Christie’s tone. A Republican lawmaker hailed him for having “set the tone,” presumably the right one. But some of New Jersey’s local officials don’t seem to like his tone. The governor said one regional agency even sent lobbyists to urge him to tone it down.

Christie responded in less-than-dulcet tones: “There isn’t a lobbyist in this town who’s going to get me to tone down on this.”
 

With a series of rhetorical salvos and spending vetoes, the new governor has been making it clear that the state’s teeming towns, school districts, and authorities are being watched. In a state that can’t afford what it’s spending — and where nearly two-thirds of spending is local — that’s welcome.
 

Last week, Christie vetoed the budget of the Delaware River and Bay Authority, a bistate agency that runs the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the Cape May-Lewes Ferry. He also rejected the authority’s blanket authorization of a year’s worth of payments to vendors. Citing scant information on the payments and a total spending increase exceeding inflation, Christie said the state can’t tolerate “ever-expanding budgets.”
 

»  More Gov. Christie sets a new tone

Posted by Inquirer editorial board @ 2:00 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Deficit hawks?
President Barack Obama leaves the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010, for a trip to New Hampshire to push one of his State of the Union proposals

President Obama is right to forge ahead with a bipartisan commission that will try to reduce deficits, after too many senators bailed on the idea.

Obama plans to create a panel by executive order to suggest budget reforms that would slow the rise of the national debt.
 

This effort is needed because the government’s red ink tops $1 trillion annually, and long-term deficits of entitlement programs keep growing.
 

Obama’s step comes after the Senate rejected a stronger proposal that would have required Congress to vote on a commission’s recommendations. While the presidential panel will make suggestions for trimming deficits, there’s no guarantee Congress will vote on those proposals.

»  More Deficit hawks?

Posted by Inquirer editorial board @ 2:00 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The most dangerous game
Philadelphia Eagles running back Brian Westbrook suffered two concussions this season. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Amid all the usual Super Bowl hype this past week, an important, if sobering, public-health message about pro football was being delivered.

Time magazine devoted a cover story to what it called “the most dangerous game” and the punishing physical toll exacted in the National Football League, which has crippled retirees mentally and physically.
 

That’s a warning not only to the next generation of NFL players, but also to the millions of other young athletes who are unlikely to don shoulder pads after high school.
 

The House Judiciary Committee convened Monday in football-obsessed Texas for its third hearing on football injuries. While two previous meetings focused on the NFL’s inadequate efforts to prevent brain injuries, the Houston session examined risks faced by younger players.

»  More The most dangerous game

Posted by Inquirer editorial board @ 2:00 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
Saturday, February 6, 2010
If not New York, another city, for 9/11 trial
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in detention at Guantanamo Bay, according to an Internet site. (Associated Press, www.muslm.net)

 

Where the trial occurs for the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and his four confederates is less important than having justice take its course in a civilian federal court.
 
Second thoughts are understandably being given to holding the trial in lower Manhattan. But that shouldn’t be too great a setback for President Obama’s appropriate plan to provide a fair tribunal for these terror suspects.
 
As long as these men are tried by federal judges under rules that provide for due process, their day in court will meet the president’s objective of bringing more of the nation’s anti-terror efforts under the rule of law.
 
Coupled with Obama’s plan to close the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, military prison, the civilian prosecution of terror suspects will help restore this nation’s stature as a democracy that sticks by its core values even in the face of ongoing terrorist threats.
 
The likely move of the trial away from New York, the scene of terrorists’ murder of nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, is being portrayed wrongly by Obama’s critics as proof that the whole notion of trying terror suspects in civilian courts is flawed.
 
That’s clearly absurd, since federal courts have convicted 195 international terrorists since 2001, according to figures reported by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
 
Among those convicted was Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called “blind sheikh” implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Abdel-Rahman was prosecuted successfully in a New York federal court.
 
Indeed, the move of the trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was prompted only after New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg tallied up the cost and likely disruption to the city’s vital financial district.
 
Bloomberg initially supported the decision that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. made in November to hold the trial near where the World Trade Center stood. But given the purported $1 billion cost for security for a trial in lower Manhattan’s federal court, Bloomberg’s reversal is easily understood.
 
The admitted embarrassment stemming from the whole episode points up the need for Obama’s Justice Department to check with any other city before announcing where the trial is headed. Despite Bloomberg’s initial embrace of the plan, he would have had more time to consider all the facts had Holder not sprung the news on him the very day it was announced publicly.
 
Now what? By law, the trial has to be held in a jurisdiction linked to the crimes. Given the sprawling 9/11 conspiracy, any number of states — including Pennsylvania and New Jersey — would be appropriate settings.
 
Many of those venues may have concerns about security, too, but at least one New York town — Newburgh — has offered to host. Its proximity to an Air National Guard base could make it a suitable stand-in for the Big Apple.
Posted by Inquirer Editorial Page @ 3:00 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Luzerne case should prompt changes
Former Luzerne County Court judges Michael Conahan, front left, and Mark Ciavarella, front right, leave the U.S. District Courthouse in Scranton, Pa., in September, after being arraigned on federal racketeering charges. (AP Photo/The Citizens' Voice, Mark Moran)

 

Calls for drastic changes in how the state Judicial Conduct Board investigates and disciplines judges should not go unheeded. The board has received deservedly harsh criticism for its lackadaisical approach to complaints about two former Luzerne County judges who allegedly accepted bribes from operators of juvenile-detention facilities.
 
Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan pleaded guilty to fraud charges last year, but a federal judge threw out their plea agreements, saying the men had not accepted responsibility. They are awaiting trial. Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court has vacated the convictions in 6,500 cases heard by Ciavarella.
 
The travesty of justice led to the creation of a 10-member commission in August to investigate the state’s juvenile-justice system. Commission members this week said the Judicial Conduct Board had failed miserably in not acting more swiftly to complaints about the two Luzerne judges.
 
The board’s excuse that it didn’t want its ethics probe to impede a federal criminal investigation isn’t good enough. While it dallied, the civil rights of juvenile defendants were violated, many being sent to lockups without having legal representation.
 
The Pennsylvania Bar Association made a good suggestion: The state should establish a separate authority to periodically evaluate and issue “report cards” on judges. Seventeen states do that now to ensure the integrity of jurists.
 
The Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice has one more hearing, on Feb. 25 in Wilkes-Barre, before making its recommendations to Gov. Rendell and the General Assembly by May 31.
 
Strong measures will be needed to restore public confidence in the judiciary after this.
Posted by Inquirer Editorial Board @ 1:00 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
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About The Inquirer Editorial Board
Harold Jackson, a winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, grew up in Birmingham, Ala., during the civil rights movement. He graduated from Baker University in Baldwin, Kan., in 1975, with a degree in journalism/political science. He has also worked at the Birmingham Post-Herald, United Press International, the Birmingham News, and the Baltimore Sun. He was at The Inquirer in the mid-1980s, returned in 1999, and became editorial page editor in 2007.

Paul Davies is the deputy editor of the Editorial Page. His newspaper career has spanned more than 20 years and includes stints at The Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Daily News. He graduated from the University of Delaware and received a masters in journalism from Columbia University, where he was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow. He was born in Philadelphia and still lives in the city.

Tony Auth began drawing while bedridden for a year and a half at the age of five. He graduated from UCLA in 1965 and worked for six years as a medical illustrator while doing three cartoons a week for various college newspapers. Tony has been happily ensconced as The Inquirer’s editorial cartoonist since 1971. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976, and has won numerous other awards, including five Overseas Press Club Awards, the Sigma Delta Chi award for distinguished service in Journalism, and the Herblock and Thomas Nast Prizes. Tony is married to Eliza Drake Auth, a painter of realistic landscapes and portraits.

Trudy Rubin is the foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a member of The Inquirer’s editorial board. Her column appears twice weekly in The Inquirer and runs regularly in many other newspapers around the United States. She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq.

Kevin Ferris is an assistant editor on the Editorial Board who oversees the Sunday Currents section and writes a weekly column on a wide range of issues. In his 15 years on the board, he’s handled letters to the editor and the Community Voices pages and has been Commentary Page editor. He started with The Inquirer in 1986, and his assignments have ranged from the copy and news desks to the Chester County bureau and the national/foreign desk.

As an editorial writer for The Inquirer for the past two decades, Russell Cooke has written on a wide range of topics covering government, legal, civic and social issues. Before joining the Editorial Board, he was a reporter in the Inquirer’s City Hall bureau.

Editorial writer Dave Boyer joined The Inquirer in 2002. He writes about politics, government, the economy, sports and many other subjects, but draws the line at writing about "Jon & Kate Plus Eight." He has won journalism awards and insists bribery was not involved. A native of Allentown, Boyer graduated from Penn State. He and his wife reside in Center City, where they enjoy strolling and paying the wage tax.

Melanie Burney joined the editorial board in January 2008 after covering education at the Inquirer for eight years. She previously worked at the Associated Press in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. She is a graduate of Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Josh Gohlke has been The Inquirer’s op-ed editor since last year, editing the daily commentary page and writing occasional editorials. He came to the Inquirer after eight years at The Record of Bergen County, N.J., first as a reporter covering local and state politics and government and ultimately as the deputy editorial page editor. He also worked as a reporter for several smaller papers in New Jersey and California. Josh was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University. He lives in Philadelphia.

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