editorials today...

That Sinking Feeling - New York Times:

According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, just fixing the nation’s aging wastewater infrastructure will cost as much as $390 billion. A report to be released next month by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton notes that a successful business environment also demands more reliable energy, water and transportation systems. The report cites a Transportation Department finding that freight bottlenecks — with planes circling at overcrowded airports and cargo stacked up at overcapacity ports — are costing the United States economy $200 billion annually.

That means that America’s ability to compete isn’t just a matter of being inventive and having a good work ethic, but also depends on the ability to deliver products reliably and on time. The first president with a master’s degree in business administration — hint, he’s the current Oval Office occupant — should convene a task force of federal, state and local officials to address the growing problem.

If a company kept its factories in the condition that America keeps its infrastructure, you’d expect it to lose business.

Lets see, the problems with this idea is

1. Bush, in spite of his degree, sank every company he worked for into the ground, and
2. "Infrastructure" was *Clinton's* campaign, back in 1992/1993, and the last thing Bush would ever do is actually give any credit to Clinton's ideas.

One Troublesome Word - New York Times:

[...] it seems a good time to remember that discomfort about words isn’t the fault of the words or of the authors who use them. And that plain old uncynical, workmanlike common nouns lose their naughty aura through unembarrassed use. The alternative — silent ignorance or the baby-talk slang that children acquire as surely as strep and ear infections — seems far less healthy.

With every generation, a new cohort of children begins the journey from ignorance to knowledge. Librarians help those children get there. Some barely make it, and end up toting ignorance as baggage, a sniggering puerility about body parts and functions. Those are the ones who will be drawn to shock radio — not children like the thoughtful, dauntless Lucky Trimble and those lucky enough to have read her book.

Meanwhile, Ruth Marcus and Richard Cohen point out that Mitt Romney's flip-flopping make Kerry and Clinton seem so solid on the issues as to be concrete.  This guy's totally reinvented himself to actually out-McCain McCain in turning from a vote-hungry "moderate" to a vote-hungry "conservative", revealing himself to hold womans and gays rights utterly in contempt.  In fact, looking at how he tries to improve his "truthiness", Marcus notes

Ruth Marcus - Mitt Romney's Extreme Makeover - washingtonpost.com:

Romney told the Boston Globe in 1994 that, as a registered independent, he voted in the 1992 Democratic primary for Paul Tsongas because Tsongas was from Massachusetts and he favored Tsongas's ideas over Bill Clinton's. Appearing last weekend on ABC's "This Week," Romney offered a contradictory explanation: "When there was no real contest in the Republican primary, I'd vote in the Democrat primary, vote for the person who I thought would be the weakest opponent for a Republican."

Surely a man with a Harvard MBA could do better than that. At the time of the primary, Tsongas was doing better than Clinton in matchups against George H.W. Bush. And Tsongas didn't need Romney's help trouncing Clinton in his home state.

To give this explanation the credit it doesn't deserve, Romney's rationale boils down to arguing that he didn't really mean his vote; he was just trying to game the political process. Those considering Romney in 2008 have reason to wonder what a politician who admits so freely to that kind of manipulation is willing to do to win their votes.

McCain we know about, and Giuliani has recently joined the NRA. Do the Republicans have anybody who's not willing to compromise his own identity in order to win the ultra-conservative primary, a demographic this country would be better to leave behind?