Editorial Roundup: Recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers

Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:

Southwest Times Record. Dec. 2, 2018.

The First Tee of Fort Smith taught kids more than just the game of golf. That’s why it’s such a shame to see the program shut down.

Executive Director Chris Murphy last week cited a lack of funding in the decision to close the 20-year-old nonprofit, which was effective Saturday. The organization needs roughly $250,000 per year to keep its doors open. Murphy said First Tee’s expenses started to outweigh its revenue and fundraising efforts, and it could not continue with all of its expenses.

But the organization could be retooled, perhaps on a smaller scale, Murphy says, and we hope that happens. The nonprofit has left a tremendous mark on the area’s young people, not just in the game of golf, but in life itself.

Christian and Evan Griffith, Claire Rose Latta, Addison Mitchell, Sydney Staton, Will Gibson … the area has produced quite a few golfers who have made names for themselves all over the state. But for all the athletes who came out of the program, there are those who didn’t pursue golf but still benefited from what First Tee provided them: Confidence in themselves and respect for others, among other skills.

First Tee’s Nine Core Values include honesty; integrity; sportsmanship; respect; confidence; responsibility; perseverance; courtesy; and judgment. What parent wouldn’t want their children to develop each of these values?

“For our program, we’re teaching kids how to set goals, how to introduce themselves properly, how to have confidence, and use that while they’re here, but also take that with them out into school and at home,” Murphy said last week. “One of the first lessons we teach is how to introduce yourself. If you can shake hands properly with somebody, you can hold a golf club. … We want them to have respect for themselves, others and their surroundings.”

Every First Tee of Fort Smith participant who graduated in 2018 went on to college, according to information provided by Community Relations Director Hannah Meadows. That’s quite remarkable. A whole world was opened up to kids who may never have had certain opportunities, thanks to the traits they learned through First Tee.

First Tee of Fort Smith never turned away a child who couldn’t pay for the program. The group offered scholarships and reduced fees for those with financial needs and provided equipment, including golf clubs and balls. First Tee served 1,200 young people annually from ages 3-18 throughout nine counties in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The Fort Smith program was one of the first First Tee facilities in the nation. It had its own six-hole course with expanded practice range and an onsite learning center within a few years of development. The area really embraced what the national First Tee organization was all about.

We feel certain First Tee’s participants - many of whom are now in their mid-20s and beyond - are also saddened at the news that the program has shut down. We greatly appreciate what the First Tee of Fort Smith has done for the area’s youth over the past 20 years.

We hope the First Tee Board of Directors finds a new model for the group in order to keep the program going, and we urge the community to come together in support for it. Our local young people have benefited so much from it over the past 20 years. We hope to see that continue.

For donation information, visit thefirstteefortsmith.org

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Dec. 4, 2018.

The president of the United States has a weakness when it comes to his self-image; he’s demonstrated time and again just how fragile his pride can be when a media outlet runs an unflattering story about him. Which, in 2018, is daily. And while his normal response is to blast back with an angry tweet, his recent suggestion that America start a government-run news agency that reports only great things about our nation is a little closer to Orwellian waters than we care to sail in.

Last Monday, President Donald Trump fired off a tweet targeting CNN. So far, nothing new. It was the follow-up tweet that included the suggestion for a state news agency. Here’s what he wrote:

“While CNN doesn’t do great in the United States based on ratings, outside of the U.S. they have very little competition. Throughout the world, CNN has a powerful voice portraying the United States in an unfair … and false way. Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!”

And what exactly would we call this new worldwide network? All the great names like CCTV, RIA Novosti and KCNA are all taken. We’d argue there’s hardly enough news, positive or otherwise, to fill a private 24-hour channel. That’s how we end up with a network like MSNBC, which fills its days with the latest coverage and exhaustive analysis on whatever our president recently did wrong in its eyes.

What’s really at the core of this idea? Does America need a government-run news agency to show the world how great it is, or does the current occupant of the Oval Office need a platform constantly showering him with praise? Because if it’s the latter, we already have that. It’s called Fox News.

And for the American point of view for foreign eyes and ears, we have Voice of America.

Our Founding Fathers knew how important an independent press was. That’s why in 1776, governing bodies like the Virginia colonial legislature passed a declaration of rights that read, “The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.”

One can even make the suggestion based on a glance at history that American presidents aren’t supposed to be best friends with the independent press. That certainly wasn’t the case for Thomas Jefferson, who often wrote personal letters admonishing the press of his day. While he understood newspapers’ importance to democracy, President Jefferson hardly made an effort to hide his annoyance with some coverage of his time in office.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting a direct line of communication with the people. But isn’t that what President Trump has a Twitter account for?

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Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Dec. 4, 2018.

“If we were not careful, reunification (of Germany) would just come about. If that were to happen, all the fixed points in Europe would collapse: the NATO front-line, the structure of NATO, and the Warsaw Pact; Mr. Gorbachev’s hopes for reform.”

- the British government

“The Berlin Wall is down. That means that all Germans are now free to go wherever they want in Europe. Hey, wasn’t that the problem in 1939?”

- Johnny Carson

“There seems to be nothing in his record that qualifies him for this highly important position.”

- The New York Times, in 1970, when Nixon appointed George H.W. Bush as UN ambassador, highlighting again the newspaper of record’s dubious track record.

George H.W. Bush thought Malta would be a good place for his first meeting as president with Mikhail Gorbachev. Oh, the two leaders had met before, but that was when George Bush was vice president, and clearly still in Reagan’s shadow. Now he was president. And it had a nice ring to it, don’t you think? From Yalta to Malta. From the beginning of the Cold War to the end of it.

George H.W. Bush could have lectured the Soviets and their leader. There might have been other presidents who would have welcomed the opportunity. George Bush could have used the words “assistance” and “help” and “aid” when the subject of the struggling - the drowning - Soviet economy came up. He could have told the general secretary what to do - or tried. He could have come to Malta as the conquering hero, and told the story of how the West had won.

And he could have killed the whole democratic movement, at least in eastern Europe, in the crib.

For to show too much anticipation, too much glee, of the Soviets losing their armored grip on eastern Europe_what the Germans call schadenfreude- would have emboldened conservative critics of Gorbachev in the USSR, and boy, did he have them. But for President Bush the First to show no support for perestroika would have been to abandon reformers inside and out of the Soviet Union, and betray Western values. The man had to walk a tight rope, diplomatically. And did so. Expertly.

The president, coming to a shipboard meeting with his counterpart after being tossed around in the Malta storm, might have been a little seasick, but he knew his mission. He must be prudent. For which “Saturday Night Live” would later mock him.

But prudent he was. And he helped usher in a new day of democracy all across Europe. And set much of the world free. Not only for the things he said and did, but for the things he didn’t say and didn’t do.

Has there ever been a one-term presidency of more consequence? And with more consequential events? If just the Berlin Wall had fallen during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, that would have made his presidency one for the history books. But then democracy started to spread in the Warsaw Pact nations (as if Warsaw had any say on how it would go under Soviet rule). Eastern Europeans threw off their overlords. Chinese students tried. And oh, yes, the Soviets would disappear during his presidency, too. And, for the first time in human history, a superpower nation with 20,000 nuclear weapons broke apart.

Then a crazy dictator from the Middle East invaded his neighbor - and America went to war.

The same month that Tiananmen Square happened, the Polish Communist Party lost every candidate on the ballot, and the Ayatollah Khomeini died.

The world needed a guiding hand.

George H.W. Bush didn’t trust Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, but he wouldn’t undermine him, either. An American president of a weaker constitution might have done or said nothing during the draw-down of Soviet forces all over the world, and thus not given those yearning for freedom any hope at all. We’ve seen it happen. (See 2009, Spring, Arab.) An American president of a more rowdy constitution might have said something impolitic, and thus bring Comrade Gorbachev a coup at home.

As the world began to change, the world needed a steady captain aboard the USS United States. It was lucky to have George H.W. Bush.

Fools and academics would call it the End of History. But as the essayist theorized, democracy had indeed won. At least in Europe and western Asia.

If Brent Scowcroft could call his and his boss’ foreign policy unimaginative, he didn’t mean it as an insult. This president understood diplomacy.

He might have been the most prepared person to ever win the presidency, the first President Bush. He had been a war hero, then a businessman, then a congressman, then an ambassador to the UN, and then to mainland China during the modern “opening” of that country. Oh, did we mention he was the chairman of his own party here at home, then director of the CIA? Wasn’t he somebody’s vice president for eight years before winning the presidency in his own right? If our fleeting memory proves correct, he was the first sitting vice president to win the presidency outright since a man of German background named Martin Van Buren.

Yes, President George H.W. Bush used the word “prudent” often in press conferences. And was accused of being slow - not unintelligent, but too careful. But that didn’t stop him from leading the entire world, including former enemies, into battle to free a small country in the Middle East - and free the world’s oil supply along with it. The Gulf War (the first one) was not only an act of great military competence, but one of historic diplomacy, too. For crying out loud, he had the Russians issuing joint press releases with the Americans on the need to do something for Kuwait. There’s a reason why the standard form of address these days is Coalition Forces.

A congressman named Jim Wright once joked that Bush was “the only Texan I know who eats lobster with his chili.” Well, maybe. But he also had sense of humor enough to invite the comedian who imitated him on SNL to the White House to perform. The man had style.

In his later years, George Herbert Walker Bush would become a man of few words. That according to his secretaries. He especially didn’t want to talk to the press when his son was president. He knew that any daylight between his opinions and his son’s would make headlines, and President Bush II’s life more complicated. Besides, he told folks toward the end, “I’ve run out of things to say.”

Why, that’s the best way to end an essay about this man, father, public servant and war hero. After you’ve run out of things to say.

Hail to the chief, sir.