THE WASHINGTON TIMES

EDITORIAL: UNESCO’s book burner

Could an international organization dedicated to freedom of expression and protecting "the world's inheritance of books" possibly elect a book burner as its director general? Lord forbid. Yet that is exactly what may happen today in a runoff election for director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

September 22, 2009

EDITORIAL: Obama goes wobbly on Afghanistan

It astonishes us how quickly Afghanistan is moving from being a "war of necessity" to "too tough to do." President Obama's comments over the weekend gave the clearest signal yet that his administration is seeking an exit strategy from a conflict he described in August as "not only a war worth fighting" but "fundamental to the defense of our people." Commitment to that fundamental defense is eroding.

September 22, 2009

EDITORIAL: E-Xpand E-Verify

Uncle Sam's history of safeguarding private data is riddled with failures, and the federal track record on handling business regulation without a job-killing burden is worse. That's why the government should have only private data and regulatory powers that are vital to the core functions of government.

September 21, 2009

EDITORIAL: Subverting Honduran democracy

The shameful siege of Honduras continues. In the past few weeks, the United States has cut more than $30 million in non-humanitarian aid, suspended most visa services and sided with Venezuela, Cuba and other of Latin America's worst dictatorships in undermining democracy. Meanwhile, the people of Honduras are desperately trying to maintain their freedom and prevent the return of a regime that Washington is committed to forcing down their throats.

September 21, 2009

EDITORIAL: Redact and withhold

Hiding public information is a game every new administration tries. President Obama's Treasury Department is only the latest to join the fun, this time with a Freedom of Information Act request from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Even after all the rule-bending, Treasury's sparse response is embarrassing to the administration and its environmental allies.

September 21, 2009

EDITORIAL: Obama’s health care doublespeak

In his Sept. 9 address to Congress on health care, President Obama assured the nation, "These are the facts. Nobody disputes them." The brazenness of the president's claim that nobody disputes his policy spin is over the top. Such a hardened position means that anybody raising objections against such a consensus is either a liar or an idiot.

September 20, 2009

EDITORIAL: Undermining airport security

House Democrats have a big gift wrapped up for their union backers. Waiting for a vote is a bill to give collective bargaining rights to 45,000 airport security screeners. This benefaction to Big Labor puts the security of American travelers at risk.

September 20, 2009

EDITORIAL: Perez’s positions give pause

Sometimes there is more than one good reason for a slowdown. That's the case when it comes to Thomas E. Perez, the nominee to head the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

September 18, 2009

EDITORIAL: Back door to a public option

President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claim that a new government health insurance option would strengthen competition and lower health care costs. If they really believe that theory, it doesn't explain why they are pushing a complete government takeover of the college-loan industry 16 years after federal tuition loans were created to compete with loans by private lenders. The student-loan power grab offers a cautionary tale that is relevant to the health care debate.

September 18, 2009

EDITORIAL: Obama’s anniversary gift to Russia

President Obama is making so many foreign-policy blunders that he is starting to make us yearn for the national-security acumen of the Carter administration. His official announcement scrapping the planned missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic was long expected but still landed with a thud. It is hard to remember a strategic choice that is so obviously wrong on so many levels.

September 18, 2009

EDITORIAL: Afghanistan is not Vietnam … yet

The United States is stuck in a 1960s flashback. In an interview on Monday, President Obama rejected comparisons between the war in Afghanistan and the Vietnam conflict, saying "you never step into the same river twice." The Amu Darya is not the Mekong.

September 17, 2009

EDITORIAL: Race to injustice

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. should answer one key question -- Will the Justice Department fight against civil rights violations of white people as avidly as those against people of color?

September 17, 2009

EDITORIAL: The humanitarian the greens hated

In his 1968 book "The Population Bomb," Earth Day co-founder Paul R. Ehrlich stated definitively that "the battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines ... a minimum of 10 million people, most of them children, will starve to death during each year of the 1970s." Such shameful crisis-mongering probably helped book sales among the panicky and impressionable.

September 16, 2009

EDITORIAL: Joe Wilson’s war

Democrats pushed through a resolution yesterday rebuking Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, for breaching House rules when he shouted "You lie" during President Obama's Sept. 9 speech to Congress. This was nothing more than a cheap political stunt based on cynical, race-baiting politics.

September 16, 2009

EDITORIAL: Justice for Black Panthers

A serious clash may be looming between the Department of Justice and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission about the department's dismissal of a voter-intimidation case against agents of the New Black Panther Party. The commission -- not Justice -- is on the side of the just.

September 16, 2009

EDITORIAL: Obama’s malpractice lip service

An exceedingly brief discussion of "malpractice reform" was the only noteworthy bone President Obama threw to Republicans in his health care speech Wednesday night. It wasn't a serious offer of reform.

September 15, 2009

EDITORIAL: Chavez goes for nukes

The song remains the same. We heard it from North Korea; we heard it from Iran. Now another dictatorship with no love for the United States embarks on a path that leads to nuclear-armed missiles. Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez has announced that he has agreed to purchase some "little rockets" from Russia and also will begin work on a nuclear program, which he insists is for peaceful purposes. Yeah, right.

September 15, 2009

EDITORIAL: Reform Medicare first

President Obama talks a lot about cutting costs and improving service by increasing government's role in health care. But Democratic plans fail to adequately address the federal government's biggest health care problem -- Medicare.

September 15, 2009

EDITORIAL: Inartful politics

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman owes American taxpayers an explanation.

September 14, 2009

EDITORIAL: NEA scandal timeline

Nov. 10, 2008: A former National Endowment for the Arts chief is named to the Obama transition team. Bill Ivey, NEA head under Bill Clinton, will handle arts and cultural issues in the transition.

September 14, 2009