Morning Op/Eds Wrapup

I've got a new job and will try something different with my postings than usual. Bear with me and we will see how this all works out.

Richard A. Clarke: To learn from this catharsis

"It is a battle not only of bombs and bullets, but chiefly of ideas. It is a war that we are losing, as more and more of the Islamic world develops antipathy toward the United States and some even develop a respect for the jihadist movement..."

David R. Obey/Robert C. Byrd: Show Us The Money

"When the Congress provided the extraordinary authorities in response to the Al Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it expected that tax dollars would be managed carefully so as to provide assistance to the victims of the attack, to secure our homeland and to improve our national security. The letter of the law and consultation with the Congress in the expenditure of appropriated funds provides our citizens with assurance that their tax dollars are spent in accordance with congressional intent. Transparency in this regard is critical. We need a full accounting of the entire $40 billion Emergency Response Fund..."

Harold Meyerson: Prince Hal vs. King Henry

"There are days in this campaign when Kerry must think he's still up against Nixon and his thugs. The same slanders that Dick and his boys cooked up then -- Kerry as dangerous radical, Kerry as inauthentic liberal -- are being served up now by Nixon's ethical heirs..."

E. J. Dionne Jr.: GOP attack dogs smear Kerry's war record

"McCain recalled that he had worked with Kerry on "POW/MIA issues and the normalization of relations with Vietnam" and wanted to stand up for his war comrade because "you have to do what's right." Speaking of Kerry, McCain said: "He's my friend. He'll continue to be my friend. I know his service was honorable. If that hurts me politically or with my party, that's a very small price to pay..."

International Herald-Tribune

"Cheney is on weak legal ground, as both the trial court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit have ruled. Many of the legal issues are arcane procedural questions about when pretrial discovery orders can be appealed. But the case also raises more substantive issues about the degree to which a vice president can claim to be above the law. As the Supreme Court held in a landmark case involving President Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes, executive privilege has its limits. Cheney may be entitled to ask that the disclosure requests be narrowed, but there is no basis for exempting him entirely..."

Newsday: Cheney: hypocrite on defense

" The thing is, as secretary of defense in the first Bush administration, Cheney proposed cutting or actually did cut many of those same programs. In fact, under Cheney defense spending shrank from almost 5 percent of gross domestic product to almost 2.5 percent. And you know what? Cheney should be, and has been, praised for that. The Cold War had come to an end and it made no sense to keep many of the weapons systems built to fight the Soviets..."

Howard Kuttner: Remedy to outsourcing: better US jobs

"Most of the solution to the outsourcing problem, however, is domestic. In recent decades, institutions that once produced a more equal society have been dismantled or weakened. These included government regulation of wages and working conditions, of industry practices, of a worker's right to choose a union (or not), as well as various social investments that once contributed good jobs. If we can rebuild these, the loss of some jobs overseas will continue to be a problem, but a manageable one..."

Los Angeles Times: Peril in the Air for Bush: Howard Stern

"A strange new sound has been crackling over the nation's radio airwaves, the same airwaves that have been dominated by Rush Limbaugh and other specialists in right-wing Sturm und Drang. Suddenly, in the thick of an election year, a left-leaning equivalent has emerged, riling a mass audience with scathing, eloquent attacks on the Bush administration..."

Philadelphia Inquirer: Enemy Combatants

"Have no illusions that the detainees are all innocent bystanders. Without question, U.S. officials had to interrogate these prisoners to uncover links to terrorist activities. But locking hundreds in enduring legal limbo without any independent oversight is untenable. It's unworthy of a democracy based on the rule of law which is actively seeking to export those values around the globe..."