Opinion: In today’s pages
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Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, wonders how Paul Wolfowitz went from being considered among ‘the best of the best’ ambassadors to a ‘petulant old man...fighting unsuccessfully to keep his job’:
He had no idea how to make the trains run on time — and seemed to have no inclination to do so. Talented people left his shop saying they could get nothing accomplished. Papers sat in in-boxes for ages with no action, and the need to deal with daily mini-crises was supplanted by the desire to turn out hugely complicated but elegantly expressed ‘concepts’ and ‘strategies’.... When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld picked Wolfowitz in 2000 as his deputy — to make all the trains in the Pentagon run on time — those of us who were familiar with Wolfowitz knew a train wreck would occur.
Former deputy secretary-general of the United Nations Mark Malloch Brown explains why now’s the time to loosen the grip the big powers have on top positions at global institutions. Columnist Rosa Brooks calls the second GOP debate a contest to see who could do the best impression of ‘torture enthusiast’ Jack Bauer. Joel Stein, like George Lopez, wonders why his sitcom got the ax and ‘Cavemen’ didn’t.
The editorial board praises the Senate’s innovative immigration deal but acknowledges that its odds for passage are slim to none. The board takes then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales’ sick-bed appeal to then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft as reason enough for Congress to give the White House a tough time passing new eavesdropping laws. Finally, the board highlights Amazon’s decision to sell music in MP3 format.
On the letters page, readers react to Gonzales as well. Valley Village’s Cliff Caballero recalls ‘The Godfather’: ‘Can someone now send Gonzales a fish with the Bill of Rights shoved in its mouth?’