Opinion: In today’s pages: education, health, bad memories
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It’s a tough day for John McCain in the Opinion section. The Arizona senator fairs poorly not only in the latest installment in the editorial board’s series, Position Papers for the Next President, but also takes a lump for his performance in last night’s debate. Today’s position paper takes on health care and education and gives a lukewarm endorsement to Barack Obama’s healthcare plan, saying that it’s imperfect but guarantees a level of coverage for all. McCain’s plan is deemed potentially dangerous. His proposal to provide tax credits of up to $5,000 for families that purchase their own health insurance, the board says, threatens to ‘dismantle’ healthcare coverage for all.
Ultimately, there might be value in separating health insurance from employment; many a worker clings to a bad job for the healthcare benefits. The problem is that McCain’s plan doesn’t replace this system with anything solid. That tax credit would work for healthy young people who can buy cheaper insurance, but would leave older people struggling to find insurance they could afford.
As for schools, McCain’s support for private-school vouchers is slammed. Vouchers are not only harmful for public education, the board writes, but private institutions can easily skirt the more rigorous requirements of public schools.
Private schools don’t have to hire well-educated teachers; they don’t have to test students; they can teach whatever they want, including creationism or Scientology. All of that is fine for parents who don’t mind paying for it, but the public should not pick up the tab.
McCain needed a do-or-die performance in last night’s debate, and the Times concludes that the Republican contender didn’t chip away at Obama’s armor but did tarnish his own image by embracing a tactic of relentless attacks.
This may have been McCain’s last chance to convince the American people that they must choose between a patriot and a bureaucrat; he delivered an argument that may hearten his supporters but that offers little to the wavering voter other than evidence that he will risk what he treasures most in order to win.
Over on the Op-Ed page, Columnist Patt Morrison shoots down three ballot propositions. According to Morrison, Proposition 9 (‘Marsy’s’ law), which would give extraordinary legal standing to crime victims and their family members, is expensive, unnecessary and possibly unconstitutional. She finds Proposition 6, which would force taxpayers to spend $600 million more a year on prisons, equally bad, and says Proposition 5 would give a ‘get out of jail free’ card to nonviolent criminals on drugs.
In her column, Rosa Brooks glories in the discomfort and dejection of Republicans who have abandoned the McCain/Palin ticket. Still, Brooks says, that leads to a problem: as reasonable Republicans distance themselves from the disastrous campaign, that only leaves the kooks.
But as enjoyable as it’s been to watch conservatives flee from the GOP, something about all this leaves me feeling a little down. Because as the more respectable, literate conservatives distance themselves from the GOP, increasingly, the only ones left on the right are paranoid, rage-driven, xenophobic nuts. Bitter? You betcha! Twisted too!
Former Times scribe Shawn Hubler, whose politics are left of center, finds an oasis of civility in this increasingly ugly campaign, watching the presidential debates with her Republican neighbors.
Things being what they are in this country, you might argue that there’s a certain patriotism in just talking and listening to one another. Plus, hard times feel a little less hard when you can get along with your neighbors. even the ones who watch a lot of Fox News on that flat-screen TV.
Lastly, Timothy Garson Ash argues against the European penchant for legislating memory control when it comes to hot-button subjects such as the holocaust and the Armenian genocide. A directive drafted by the European Union to combat racism and xenophobia, Garton writes, only adds to the nonsense.
Cartoon: Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader