Opinion: In today’s pages: Carmaker CEOs, Brewer Bush and the limits of terror
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So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen good-bye! The board shows the door to a handful of overpaid and incompetent executives. First up are the head honchos of the Big Three automakers, writing:
Today, the biggest challenges for the Big Three are their top executives’ insularity and sense of self-importance, the public’s perception that their products are inferior and the recession that’s sapping demand for cars. The first two could be addressed by sweeping out the current management...
Next to get the hook is Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. David L. Brewer. In an earlier editorial the board asked him to resign. Now it’s begging. His supporters, the board says, should put aside racial politics and the retired admiral should give back some of the $381,000 he’s paid even though Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon C. Cortines is the one really in command. Lastly, the board chides George Bush for coming whisper close to an admission on ABC News that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake but then dodged making an apology. Looks like he’ll leave office with those words unspoken.
Over in Op-Ed territory, Patt Morrison flirts with the idea of balancing the California budget by taxing marijuana until the folks at Rand rain on that parade by predicting all sorts of unpleasant social costs of legalizing the nation’s biggest cash crop. Robert Epstein, a visiting scholar at UC San Diego, struggles to explain to his horrified wife (and everybody else) that he’s not really against gay marriage, per se, but in favor of legitimizing all sorts of consentual, ‘non-exploitative’ relationships. And columnist Rosa Brooks bids goodbye to the worst of all Bushisms, the ‘war on terror,’
Terror is an emotion, and terrorism is a tactic. You can’t make ‘war’ against it. Even if meant as a mere metaphor, ‘the war on terror’ foolishly enhanced the terrorist’s status as prime boogeyman....’
Also, have a look at letters to the editor, in which readers weigh in on the effort to oust Brewer, gun rights and the healthcare debate.
Cartoon: Jim Margulies