The Tribune Wednesday January 12, 2005 Page 4A 01 Dinion JACKSON COUNTY The Tribune TORTURING WR WIFE VET? 1L Richard Davis Publisher Dan Davis Editor A FREEDOM NEWSPAPER Seymour taking prudent steps Our view The city of Seymour is "acting snowstorms, tornadoes, -and haz ardous material spills. That makes sense to us. Recent An adequate attorney general The city of Seymour should be commended for taking a closer look at -how it performed in the wake of December's record snowfall that dumped 29 inches across the area. Some Seymour residents groused that their streets were neglected, and others complained that trash languished on their snowbanks too long while city workers were plowing snow. While we concede that 29 inches of snow is a lot to contend with for any strt department, we agreed with some members of the Seymour City Council who asked last month whether the city's response was sufficient and how that response might be improved for future storms.
Mayor Jim Bullard reported to the council Monday night that he heard that message and has started such a review, offering council members preliminary findings that he said should lead a better response plan for a variety of emergencies, including First Amendment ing: When was the last time the American people had an attorney general they could be truly proud of? John Ashcroft got the job mainly to appease the Republican Party's most conservative factions. Janet Reno was allowed to stay on the job despite her disastrous handling of the siege of the Branch Davidi-an compound in Waco, Texas. Ronald Reagan installed two pals, William French Smith and Edwin Meese, neither of whom distinguished himself. This is not the sort of office that should, be given to someone whose prime qualification is a close personal relationship with, and a record of loyalty to, the president. As the most important law-enforcement officer in the country, the attorney general should be a model of independence -r as well as the executive branch's conscience on such matters as individual rights, privacy and the rule of law.
But appointees are rarely chosen with these criteria in mind. The best example of one who was is Edward would suggest reassessing the Geneva Convention's provisions on the treatment of enemy combatants. But when we are faced with an unconventional foe that is independent of any government and disdainful of the usual rules of war, it would be irresponsible not to ask whether changes are appropriate for this new type of conflict. Gonzales also displayed clearer perceptions than his opponents when he said the mistreatment of inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison was the result of inadequate training and supervi-: sion, not an obscure internal administration memorandum on torture. It would have been good to hear the nominee unequivocally reject torture as an option under any circ*mstances.
But at least Gonzales and the Justice Department have disavowed the 2002 memo proposing a definition that would have allowed all sorts of barbaric techniques. It's safe to assume that he'll do a competent job of running the Justice Department. Still, it's worth ask CHICAGO TRIBUNE Alberto Gonzales doggedly defended his record as White House counsel during last week's Senate hearings, and nothing he said is likely to derail his nomination for attorney general. In the face of vigorous questioning about the administration's policies on the treatment of enemy prisoners, Gonzales stayed calm and avoided damning admissions. Still, his handling of the torture issue was best summarized by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Republican: "not entirely satisfactory." Gonzales' Democratic critics have yet to make a case to override the presumption that a president should get to choose his own Cabinet.
New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer acknowledged as much: "There's a lower standard, frankly, for attorney general than for judge, because you give the president who he wants." Not all of the charges leveled at Gonzales are valid. Critics feign shock that he dent manner by studying its response the late December snowfall to determine. how its response can be events improved for here 29 snow- storms and inches Of otheremer-SnOW and gencies. 19.3 feet flood waters and.
elsewhere the deadly chlorine gas spill in South Carolina cer-tainlypbint out the need to be prepared. Developing that plan, Bullard said Monday, is in the works. It will include taking inventory of equipment available to combat snow, for t. instance, and contac-ing private contractors to provide addi- tional help in severe cases. They're also examining how to deal with the collection of garbage in such situations.
It's encouraging to see the city taking these steps and examining how it can improve services to the public. "In Washington: Rep. Mike Sodrel 1508 Longworth HOB Washington, D.C. 20515 Or call (202) 225-5315 Richard Lugar 306 Hart SOB Washington, D.C. 20510 Or call (202)224-4814 Sen.
Evan Bayh B40-2 Dirksen'SOB Or call (202) 224-5623 CBS News takes its lumps Heads roll, but the network whitewashes evidence As the most important law-enforcement officer in the country, the attorney general should be a model of independence as well as the executive branch's conscience on such matters as individual rights, privacy and the rule of law. Levi, who helped restore trust in the Justice Department after Watergate under President Gerald Ford. Gonzales will most likely perform respectably as attorney general. But his selection raises, the same question raised by a number of those who have gone before: Is this the best we can do? This editorial appeared in Monday's edition of the Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Knight RidderTribune Information Services.
publicly of partisanship Rather was not. In the days following the airing of the story, we were surprised by the arrogance of a network operating in much the same way as any number of corporate executives had acted on the air after being targeted by "60 Minutes" for some form of wrongdoing. The network certainly should have known what not to do when questions of propriety arise. The network could have gone further, perhaps by dealing with issues of politi-. cal bias, but at least it fired responsible executives and announced policies to protect against similar problems in the future.
Long gone are the days when most Americans get their news from three sources. Now for better or worse, but mostly for the better Americans can turn to traditional networks -andr-newspapeP9r-as--well- as-to cable networks, talk radio and the Internet. fnrnfiws. As usual, competition is the best answer for most problems. uttte "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution Here's how to reach your lawmakers: under pressure to "sugar-coat" Mr. Bush's service, and another claimed that Mr. Bush failed to show up for a medical exam, despite the orders of his commanding officer. Immediately, the documents hit the fan or at least in this case, they hit the world of Internet blog-gers. Critics claimed the documents were obvious forgeries and could be replicated virtually identically Tby plugging the information into modern word-processing software.
The panel, which included former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Associated Press President Louis Boccardi, slammed the network for relying on documents from "a sometimes controversial source with a partisan point of view. Only the most cursory effort one unsuc- eessful-attempt-te-eontaet- the original source by tele- phone was made to estafr- lish the chain of custody." The panel blamed "competitive zeal" rather than partisanship for the grievous errors that plagued the story and its aftermath. Yet it's hard not to conclude that, partisanship played a role at some level. Would the network or Mr. Rather, who doesn't hide his liberal political views, have run with a story so late in the campaign about, say, candidate John Kerry's controversial Viet-" nam service? Particularly strange is the way the network defended the story and documents even after credible questions were raised.
CBSS thought it could simply brush off critics as uninformed Internet partisans, yet, ultimately, the bloggers had more credibility on this issue than one of the nation's top TV networks. CBS now admits that even after CBS News President Andrew Heyward ordered Senior Vice, President Betsy West to review-the-opinions-of document examiners, no such investigation was taK- en. Ms. West was one of those fired Monday, although orrfWf A ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER CBS News fired three executives and one other employee Monday, after releasing the results of an independent investigation of the network's airing of a debunked story critical of President George W. Bush's National Guard service.
It wasn't just the story that proved fateful for the network, but its poor handling of criticisms that arose after the fact. As CBS admitted in its own news coverage of the event, "After a stubborn 12-day defense of the story, CBS News conceded that it could not confirm trie authenticity of the documents." Aired Sept. 8 "in the final weeks of a tight presidential race, the "60 Minutes Wednesday" report, by Dan Rather, unveiled four docu ments that-purported -to show that Mr. Bush may gotten preferential treatment during his guard service in the 1970s. One claimed that the guard was Mallard Fillmore Bruce Tinsley At the Statehouse: Senate The Indiana Statehouse 200 W.
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