. . . Chronicle editorials the last few days were calm and sensible, more nearly resembling the work of adults than of wrinkling children. Then it struck me: . . .
. . . the! sad! and! angry! Lisa! Gray! must! be! on! vacation!
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"Calm and sensible" does not mean "right." It means that the topics are not, as too often the case, scrapped up from the cutting-room floor at Looney Tunes -- who'll ever forget "Whither the napatorium?" -- and the arguments are laid out in a way that invites a response on the merits, not another weary, what-were-these-guys-thinking (or -smoking) shake of the head.
Today, for instance, the editorial was about restoration of open-records standards to the lamentable (my word, not the Chronicle's) financial-regulation bill. The essay even managed a kind word for Republican Senator John Cornyn, a first in my memory.
There's a lot still wrong with recent editorials, substantively, but they at least take serious things seriously.
Extend the the lady's vacation, please. Better, put her on permanent holiday.
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Example of what's still wrong
Monday the editorialists called attention to the murders of journalists in Honduras. Good on them. No complaint here about the topic.
But in doing so, the Chronicle conflated political murder -- clearly wrong -- with the complexities and ambiguities surrounding Honduras's constitutional crisis of 2009. The editorial used all the code words and talking points of the international left, which is still in mourning over that Central American country's escape from Chavez-style Bolivarian revolution.
One example will do. The editorial refers to "the military coup last year that ousted leftist president Manuel Zelaya."
Coup? The military acted in response to a ruling of the Honduran supreme court and left, not generals -- the usual beneficiaries of coups -- but elected leaders of Congress in charge of the government.
The legality of the military action is much debated, but it was not self-evidently wrong. Our own Library of Congress, for instance, concluded that the Honduran congress and court acted within their authority under Honduran law, but said the removal of Zelaya from the country (as contrasted with removal from office) was extra-legal.
So be it. Our editorialists, weak on international relations and having no colleagues from the right to leaven their ideological propensities, naturally reach for the handiest crutches, which are whatever theories the Clever People hold at the moment. And the Clever People are still miffed about the Honduran preference for for something other than a Workers' Paradise.
Would that our aging band of editorialists could muster quite the same concern for journalism, democracy, and human rights in Caracas, La Paz, Managua, Quito, and -- of course -- Havana.
Breath-holding not recommended.
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