Opinion: In today’s pages: Latino spin, Southern victory, Iraqi opportunity
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The Clinton campaign may be pulling out another race card — that Latinos won’t support a black candidate — but Gregory Rodriguez calls that bluff:
Here in L.A., all three black members of Congress represent heavily Latino districts and ultimately couldn’t survive without significant Latino support. Five other black House members represent districts that are more than 25% Latino — including New York’s Charles Rangel and Texan Al Green — and are also heavily dependent on Latino voters.So, given all this evidence, why did this notion get repeated so nonchalantly?
Writer Vicki Leon sketches out tattoo culture through the ages, and Joseph Mailander takes on Proposition S. Atlantic Monthly correspondent Bing West and L.A. Times contributing editor Max Boot argue that in Iraq, ‘victory is within our grasp — if only the Iraqi government could effectively reach out to Sunnis and Shiites alike who are fed up with violence and sectarian divisions.’
The editorial board marks Barack Obama’s decisive win in the South Carolina primary as a day to remember:
On Saturday, black men and women stood beside whites and a smattering of Latinos as a black man accepted South Carolina’s Democratic nomination for president. ‘This election,’ Obama told a cheering crowd in the Confederacy’s cradle, ‘is about the past versus the future.’ Whatever one thinks about Obama and Clinton, whether one is a Republican or a Democrat, that is a moment to treasure in our short history, a history marked by the pursuit of a perfected nation, where all are created equal.
The board also urges the state Senate Health Committee to approve the healthcare bill negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, and warns lawmakers not to let the ouster of prison healthcare czar Robert Sillen obscure the issues he raised.
Readers react to Patt Morrison’s column last Thursday. Bill Gervasi writes:
Patt Morrison captured the feeling that I, and probably many others, have had since the beginning of the Bush administration. The bombardment of so many wrongs against our liberties, science, the environment, world opinion and our prisoners from a war that can never end, coupled with such blatantly illegal acts as the outing of a CIA agent and wiretapping without court orders, have a shock-and-awe effect that still leaves me wondering how it is possible that these things could have ever happened in our country.