The Star's editorial board on Friday is continuing its series on the GAO Iraq progress report, especially in light of President Bush's televised speech Thursday night:
Many likely will awake this morning to the feeling that the past 10 months have been nothing but a political trick — from the November midterm election that rejected the White House’s overly rosy assessment of conditions in Iraq to the firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to the announcement of an escalation strategy to this week’s misleading assessment of its progress and, most recently, to Thursday night’s shell game about how many troops will be in Iraq.
Americans wish to be leveled with.
The Star's board also is proclaiming its happiness over the state's "Take Back the Highways" program -- especially the manner in which it was conducted:
We are pleased with the fairness of Murphy, pleased with the fairness of Holmes, and pleased with the fairness of Alabama’s state troopers.
You can’t get more pleased than that.
And, lastly, we're writing about new U.S. Census figures that address our state's political leanings:
Voters are tiring of candidates who make church membership a mark of party affiliation. They are repelled by those who demonize dissent and make opposition un-American. These political tactics are being rejected by more and more citizens. The moderate core of our voting population is being revealed again. Good news, indeed.
On the op-ed page there's this column on Calhoun County's and Alabama's future, by yours truly:
The last 10 years tell me we should demand such progress for the 10 years to come. Look at what we’ve accomplished. Consider where we once were. If we can get this far, if we can rid ourselves of chemical weapons, weather the closing of a nearly 100-year-old military base and emerge standing from horrible examples of industrial pollution, why can’t we take the next step and shoot for what we all want?
