Sometimes the editorial and Op Ed pages fascinate.
The mourning over the resignation of Fed Chief Alan Greenspan has shocked if not surprised me – he did so many things so very wrong for most Americans.
Finally, this morning, the Albuquerque Journal published E.J. Dionne Jr.’s column on Greenspan and his successor in which Dionne, a liberal, voiced some adverse criticism of the guy. Weak tea, I thought.
Over on the next page, meanwhile, the Journal published the kind of Letter to the Editor newspapers pray for – a somewhat unhinged right-winger accusing the Journal staff of leftwing bias. In the process, he located Dionne as
"left of Lenin." I found it funny. I hope the Journal editorial folks don’t take it as evidence they are doing something right.
The Journal also published an article from the LA Times by one Dahlia Lithwick – stupendous name! – identified as Slate’s Supreme Court reporter. It’s the clearest piece I have read on the intra-right wing donnybrook over the President's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Interesting, too, that the author - lodged at an Internet enterprise is valued by the mainstream press.
Also on that page, Jeanne Pahls, a local anti-nuke crusader, suggests that Albuquerque get rid of the WMD stored here rather than make futile disaster preparations. Her third paragraph made me sit up and take notice:
"If Albuquerque were to secede from the union, it would immediately become our planet’s third largest nuclear power."
That should have been the lead to the piece, no?
Meanwhile, back on the editorial page, Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald says neither better law enforcement nor a guest worker program will solve the problem of illegal immigration from Latin America. The only solution - reduce the pay gap between Latino and American workers.
He suggests doing that via economic integration, based on what Western Europe did after WWII. I have no idea if that’s sensible or possible, but surely his basic argument is correct – you cannot stop mass immigration, you can only work to keep immigrants at home.
Give the Journal credit for publishing a piece demonstrating original thinking, quite outside the parameters of the immigration debate.