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Rick Richards, Michigan City News-Dispatch: Washington, apparently, cannot help itself. In trying to fix a broken economy, the Senate passed a bill that wraps duct tape around a crumbing foundation, but does nothing to fix the 
problem that caused the collapse in the first place. The $700 billion bailout - with is actually closer to $850 billion once tax breaks to a lucky few are included - will come out of our pockets. There’s a line from the movie “The Outlaw Josie Wales” that’s appropriate for what just happened to taxpayers, but since this is a family newspaper, I can’t quote it verbatim. Let’s just say what our leaders have wetted the backs of our necks with isn’t rain water. We’re being fed a crap sandwich, all right, and we’re all going to have to take a big bite. Get used to it, because it’s going to be on the menu for long time.
Sylvia Smith, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: the level of suspicion aimed at President Bush and his team goes beyond due-diligence skepticism into mistrust. And that’s from members of his own party. Congress should ask tough questions. But the display of those questions clearly telegraphs that the lawmakers are bipartisan in their mistrust of Bush. Why? Because Bush long ago exhausted the deep reservoir of trust all presidents start with. He cried wolf so many times in the past 7 1/2 years that despite the undeniable reality of our economic house of cards collapsing, Congress and the American public had no confidence in Bush’s proposed rescue. Rushing to war in Iraq on baseless assumptions displayed his impetuousness. His rush to do away with civil liberties after 9/11 underscored his lack of judgment. His gut-based approval of Vladimir Putin proved his fallible instincts. And his and his administration’s misstatements (“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction,” “mission accomplished”) cultivated wariness among the public. When a president is known for impetuousness, poor judgment, lousy instincts and a casual regard for the truth … well, trusting him will not be most Americans’ first, second or third response. My point is not to throw darts at Bush; his 23 percent national approval rating shows clearly that he’s about as low in public opinion as it’s possible to get. (In fact, 76 percent don’t trust Bush on the economy.) Instead, here’s the lesson: The next president must see all this as a cautionary tale for how not to conduct business. Don’t run a White House on secrecy. Don’t stovepipe information so that counter-indicating data or questions are shunted aside. Don’t isolate Congress from the key decisions. Don’t tell the American people things that are clearly not true or are later exposed as false.
Rich James, Post-Tribune: I’ve always had a lot of respect for you, John Curley. I still do, but …what’s with this talk about suing the Lake County Election Board to halt the use of early voting sites in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago? You may, by now, already have filed that lawsuit. As county GOP chair, you have that right. But you’re wrong. The Election Board voted fair and square, 3-2, to open the three sites. Your two GOP appointees voted against it. Hey, that’s democracy. There are a couple of things wrong with your grand stance, John. You said you are against the satellite sites because they could open the door for vote fraud. Let’s talk about why you and I both know that’s wrong and why you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. Do you remember when all the evidence of vote fraud spilled out of the 2003 East Chicago mayoral primary? Remember how it led to a lawsuit and one of the biggest black eyes in Lake County Democratic history? Remember that 99 percent of that vote fraud was through the absentee-ballot process, not voting on actual machines? Remember how you and the late Democratic chairman, Stephen Stiglich, set out to make sure it never happened again? Remember how you and Stig purged the voter rolls and set up a virtually fool-proof system to prevent future absentee-ballot fraud? Remember how proud you were of what you had accomplished? Remember how, in some subsequent elections, that Secretary of State Todd Rokita, a man of your own party, camped on the edge of Lake County on election eve, poised to send his teams into East Chicago and Gary? Remember how upset you got about Rokita poking his nose into Lake County when you knew that you and Stig had straightened things out?
Leslie Stedman Weidenbener, Louisville Courier-Journal: It was just last month that the spokeswoman for Rep. Baron Hill’s congressional campaign told me how well voters were reacting to the Democrat’s positive campaign commercials. Katie Moreau, who worked in Hill’s congressional office until leaving for the campaign, said the reaction had been overwhelming and bipartisan. It’s not surprising, given that Hill’s past races against Republican Mike Sodrel had been bloody affairs, with attacks flying from both sides. This year Sodrel has yet to go on television with commercials, while Hill has aired several ads that focus on issues. Voters have probably been just plain relieved. So that’s why it was a little disappointing that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the political arm of Democratic candidates for the U.S. House, entered the fray with a negative commercial. Now, I’m the first to say that negative is in the eye of the beholder. An ad that refers to an opponent’s view on an issue isn’t necessarily an attack. But this ad hearkens back to the “Millionaire Mike” label Democrats have used in past commercials against Sodrel. It also misrepresents Sodrel’s position on Social Security, accusing him of seeking to cut benefits. While Sodrel has said an option for Social Security is letting younger workers put some of their retirement savings into private investment accounts, he has not advocated cuts in benefits. In fact, he has consistently said he wants benefits to remain unchanged for current and near-term retirees. The Sodrel campaign is crying foul over the new ad, and spokesman Ryan Reger said last week that Hill should be calling for the committee to take the ad off the air. But here’s where things get a little tricky. Federal law prohibits the Hill campaign from talking strategy with outside groups, including the committee. Yes, Hill could make a public plea for the ad to end, but he can’t just call the committee up and order it off the air.
Tags: Rich James, Rick Richards, Sylvia Smith
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This entry was written by and posted on October 9, 2008 at 11:59 am and filed under HPI Weekly. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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