Opinion: In today’s pages: Inauguration, gay marriage and the LAPD
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With news media around the world obsessing about America’s new president, the Opinion Manufacturing Division shows remarkable restraint -- it devoted one of the six articles on its pages today to something other than Barack Obama and his policies. Well, OK, that Op-Ed made copious references to Obama, but at least it didn’t quote from his inaugural address.
Speaking of which, we offer two views of The Speech. New columnist Doyle McManus, the last chief of the Times’ erstwhile Washington bureau, focused on Obama’s ambitious but sobering message about the challenges ahead:
He didn’t congratulate Americans for electing him; he warned them, instead, that he will demand ‘a new era of responsibility.’ He paused only briefly to acknowledge the racial progress that made his ascent possible. Instead, his main message was: We are in the moral equivalent of war, and now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of their president.
Meanwhile, the Times’ editorial board seemed disappointed that Obama’s speech wasn’t as memorable as some of his earlier efforts. It also rebuked the new president for framing the threats posed by far-flung and discrete terrorist groups as an ‘undifferentiated war on terror,’ arguing that such broad thinking ‘blinded the Bush administration to important nuances in global politics.’
Picky, picky, picky. The board also voiced skepticism over one of the central elements of Obama’s economic stimulus plan -- the payroll tax rebate -- and urged lawmakers to take a less ideological, more pragmatic approach. Rounding out the editorial stack, the board used evangelist Rick Warren’s pointedly noncontroversial inaugural invocation as a jumping-off point to chastize Obama about his opposition to gay marriage.
People, where is the love? For one day, at least, the board seemed serious about the applying the scrutiny it espoused in Tuesday’s lead editorial.
Back on the Op-Ed page, columnist Tim Rutten marveled at the LAPD’s changed relationship with the city’s black community, and called on Obama’s nominee to be attorney general, Eric Holder, to ease up on the consent decree governing the department’s handling of racial issues. And academic Joseph S. Nye Jr. argued that Obama will have a more successful foreign policy if he devotes more attention to America’s ‘soft power’:
America can become a smart America -- a smart power -- by again investing in global public goods, providing things people and governments of the world want but have not been able to get in the absence of leadership by the strongest country. Development, public health and coping with climate change are good examples. By complementing U.S. military and economic might with greater investments in soft power, and focusing on global public goods, the U.S. can rebuild the framework that it needs to tackle tough global challenges.
Finally, our readers sounded off on the verdict in Michael Corona’s trial, Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner’s tax troubles, the state controller’s announcement that tax refunds will be delayed for lack of funds, the Gaza conflict, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the protest over a Santa Ana art exhibit.