| Editorial Board: White House makes a statement for D.C. fairness Jan 17th 2013, 00:48 AMONG THE many statements that President Obama will make during the upcoming week's inaugural events will be a small but significant one about the continuing second-class citizenship of those who live in the nation's capital. Mr. Obama's decision to use District license plates with the words "Taxation Without Representation" on all presidential vehicles is an encouraging sign of his support for the city. We hope it signals a new willingness by him to try to correct the injustices endured by the District. Read full article >>   |  | Editorial Board: Chinese media open up about Beijing smog Jan 17th 2013, 00:48 ADD AIR pollution to the list of challenges that China's new leadership must address to satisfy its increasingly restless citizenry. Over the weekend, Beijing and more than 30 other cities were enveloped by a thick haze. Measurements of hazardous particles spiked to unprecedented levels — and so did complaints on the country's social media. On Monday, the government's principal propaganda organs essentially surrendered to public sentiment, breaking their silence and publishing a host of articles and editorials calling the pollution "choking, dirty and poisonous," among other things. Read full article >>   | | Editorial Board: A big agenda on gun violence Jan 17th 2013, 00:37 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S sweeping proposals to combat gun violence represent a sound response to the mass shootings that have horrified the country. In his legislative proposals and executive actions announced Wednesday, the president and Vice President Biden showed a willingness to confront a difficult problem head-on — a problem that is not only about laws but also about culture and mental-health care. Read full article >>   | | The gun debate is nothing to kid about Jan 17th 2013, 00:35 If the gun debate gets any more juvenile, the participants will need strollers. The National Rifle Association took the first shot in this latest pursuit of the puerile. Not only did it release a political ad late Tuesday about the president's children — a bipartisan taboo of long standing — but it made Sasha and Malia's security the subject of a brutal attack on President Obama. Read full article >>   | | Some questions for Hagel Jan 17th 2013, 00:19 Senate hearings on the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary will be a distinctive Washington entertainment, a donnybrook without drama. He should be confirmed: Presidents are due substantial deference in selecting Cabinet members because they administer presidential policies and, unlike judicial appointments, they leave when their nominators do. Hagel will be confirmed because Sen. Chuck Schumer, after hesitating theatrically enough to propitiate supporters of Israel, of whom there are many among his New York constituents, has decided not to oppose Hagel. Opposition would have ended Schumer's hope to make the nation nostalgic for Harry Reid by succeeding him as Senate Democratic leader. Still, the hearings will be sound and fury signifying renewed interest in national security policy, which can be illuminated by Hagel addressing questions like these: Read full article >>   | | India awakens to its grass-roots power Jan 17th 2013, 00:19 NEW DELHI It's common these days for people to compare India with China and conclude that maybe democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be. In India, they note, power shortages force factories to rely on generators, and investors may spend years trying to gain title to land for construction. In China, by contrast, power plants, factories and entire mega-cities seem to sprout overnight. Sleek trains streak across China's countryside while Indians cram themselves into — or cling to the tops of — wheezing old buses. Read full article >>   | | Afghanistan's improving ways Jan 17th 2013, 00:11 NEW DELHI For Americans weary of nearly a dozen years of war, Afghanistan often seems like a country where nothing ever changes and the same story of ethnic and tribal struggle repeats itself in an endless loop. Read full article >>   | | A view of Cuba shared by many Jan 16th 2013, 23:53 Regarding Jennifer Rubin's Right Turn blog excerpt "Hagel's Cuba problem" [op-ed, Jan. 14]: Whether you agree or disagree with former senator Chuck Hagel's positions on foreign policy, to suggest that he was clueless or ill-informed on Cuba policy during his time in the Senate badly mischaracterizes a statesman who was an active member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent world traveler. Mr. Hagel's prior statements on Cuba are well known and today their sentiments are shared by a majority of Americans, who recognize the failure of the U.S. embargo to change policy in Cuba and the absurdity of providing the regime there with an excuse for deprivation and hardship. Read full article >>   | | Al-Qaeda is a symptom Jan 16th 2013, 23:53 The Jan. 12 front-page article "Obama, Karzai hasten handoff" included this statement by President Obama: "We achieved our central goal, or have come very close to achieving our central goal, which is to de-capacitate al-Qaeda, to dismantle them, to make sure that they can't attack us again." Read full article >>   | | This time, the moderate is willing to fight Jan 16th 2013, 21:03 President Obama went big in offering a remarkably comprehensive plan to curb gun violence, and good for him. But his announcement Wednesday is only the beginning of a protracted struggle for national sanity on firearms. Extremists have controlled the debate on guns for many years. They will do all they can to preserve a bloody status quo. The irrationality of their approach must be exposed and their power broken. Read full article >> | | Jennifer Rubin: Obama the peevish Jan 16th 2013, 17:28 President Obama has always been prickly when it comes to receiving criticism and averse to glad-handing or even dealing with Congress, both Democrats and Republicans. LBJ he is not. However, his recent performances go beyond arrogance. And this time it is not only conservative critics who have noticed the obnoxious indifference to others' views and role in the legislative process. Read full article >> | |
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