Bakersfield.com Opinion : National Voices

Gentlefolk: Start your BBQ grills

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:05:00 PDT

Disregard the almanac. And the calendar. Forget whatever the meteorologist or the astrology charts or your next-door neighbor with the hair growing out of a mole shaped like the state of Delaware on his nose told you. The true wormhole opening to summer is not the upcoming solstice on Wednesday, June 20; it is, has been, and forever shall be the last Monday of May -- Memorial Day.

Memorial Day: when the world alters unalterably for every kid and teacher and parent and water-park operator across the land. By now, the cages have either sprung open or the locks are being picked, and the imprinted DNA of every true-blooded American tingles in anticipation of the 10 to 12 weeks of school-free adventures looming ahead like a sun-kissed valley below a fog-enshrouded summit. Even those of us who don't get to stop and romp in the valley are able to recall extended days when we did, and can't help but grin wistfully.

Go out there and clone one for the Gipper

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:04:00 PDT

When news broke that a vial of Ronald Reagan's blood was being auctioned online, the price quickly jumped to $30,000 as websites and blogs explored a tantalizing possibility: Did this mean the late president could be cloned?

Before mad scientists got the chance to perform a Dolly-the-Sheep experiment with the 40th president, the seller succumbed to criticism and decided to donate the blood to the Reagan foundation. But this should only encourage the cloning speculation because the Gipper's DNA is now in the hands of those who would most like to reproduce him: Republicans.

Cory Booker's epiphany

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:05:00 PDT

This far outside the Beltway, it's easy to see why regular people are so put off by politics -- our endless 24/7 stream of dysfunctional statecraft has become so toxic that it is even making politicians sick.

Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., and a young, rising star among the Democrats, made the huge mistake of using a national TV appearance to say the same thing that's on most voters' minds: The negative tone of the presidential campaigns is "nauseating."

Obama is doing his best to alienate Catholic voters

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:31:01 PDT

In a blowout presidential election, a few large issues dominate. In a tight election, a range of smaller concerns -- important to strategic constituencies in battleground states -- can end up being crucial.

President Obama may have hoped for a decisive re-election victory styled on Ronald Reagan's in 1984. At best, he will return to the White House in the manner of George W. Bush in 2004 -- after a scrambling fight across the Electoral College map. In this election, Americans are overwhelmingly focused on the economy, with cultural issues lagging in priority. But it does not follow that cultural debates are electorally unimportant. For Obama, they could matter among the wrong groups in the wrong places.

Boehner draws his sword as debt debate nears

Mon, 21 May 2012 11:12:28 PDT

John Boehner thinks it's kind of funny. "It struck me as somewhat comical," he told reporters Thursday morning, "that, you know, people are looking to me like I'm the guy carrying a sword around town, I'm going to bludgeon someone."

Well, Mr. Speaker, maybe that's because your rapier keeps setting off the metal detectors.

On most issues, Hispanics reside in the mainstream

Thu, 17 May 2012 11:06:14 PDT

For me, the most difficult thing about a full week of news reporting and punditry regarding President Obama's historic embrace of same-sex marriage has been getting buffeted by worn-out stereotypes about how Hispanics will act on the revelation at the ballot box in November.

So far I've seen it stated that gay marriage "remains highly contentious among black and Latino voters," heard that it will aggressively alienate voters who hold socially conservative values -- and therefore be sure to turn off Hispanics -- and read that Obama's remarks have sparked "strong reactions" from Latinos.

The role of religion as a partisan trump card

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:05:00 PDT

Mitt Romney did not rise on the power of his rhetoric. At the Detroit Economic Club in February, his speech was swallowed by its stadium venue, overshadowed by a gaffe (his wife's "couple of Cadillacs") and weighed down by leaden language. Early in the primaries, Romney's attempts to wax poetic on the virtues of America -- often by quoting patriotic hymns -- were waxen.

The decision to deliver the commencement address at Liberty University, founded by the late Jerry Falwell, did not promise much better. It is the type of venue chosen by a chain-smoking Republican campaign operative who once met an evangelical in 1984 and has felt no need to renew the acquaintance. "We need to get those born-againers," one imagines the pitch. "Don't they all like Falwell?" Never mind that there are dozens of respected evangelical academic settings in battleground states with less culture war baggage.

Obama's evolution on same-sex marriage

Sat, 12 May 2012 22:00:00 PDT

President Obama's long, tortuous metamorphosis on same-sex marriage finally reached its evolved state right in between stinky cheese and "General Hospital."

Smoked out by his own vice president, Obama decided to come out of the closet on the issue to ABC News' Robin Roberts, who rushed her scoop onto the air Wednesday afternoon during the closing minutes of "The Revolution," ABC's new talk show featuring a "stellar dream team of experts that will help complete transformations in all areas of life."

A 'magic bullet' for student aid applications

Tue, 15 May 2012 10:42:27 PDT

Public policy wonks are always looking for magic bullets that have a shot at making a real impact. Every once in a while, one seems to come along.

Take the intractable issue of getting high school seniors to apply for the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. High school teachers, guidance counselors and college access organizations across the country know the FAFSA as the mechanism for connecting the neediest students to federal and state grants, work-study awards, and loans for college.

We need to educate people to be parents

Wed, 09 May 2012 23:05:00 PDT

If there's any societal group today responsible for the future well-being of our nation that isn't being held accountable enough, it's parents.

Yes, parenting is a tough job -- for the ones who really work at it. That is, the ones who ask for help or devoutly read parenting books and never stop educating themselves, growing old with self-help books such as "How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk" and "How to Really Love Your Adult Child: Building a Healthy Relationship in a Changing World."

Obama bids farewell to hope and change

Tue, 08 May 2012 23:06:00 PDT

"We're not going back. ... We're going forward," said President Obama during his formal campaign kickoff in Ohio. This rallying cry was pedestrian, and appropriately so. Obama is no longer a leader on horseback. His campaign -- on the evidence of its first day -- will be a long, unimaginative, partisan march to the sea.

Gone are the vast ambitions of national progress and healing. In Ohio on Saturday, Obama made a methodical appeal to various voting blocs -- college-educated women, gays, Hispanics. He waded into the culture war on abortion, something he rarely did four years ago. And he accused the GOP of trickle-down hostility to the middle class.

Slain by a stereotype as much as by any firearm

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:08:33 PDT

I don't care about George Zimmerman's MySpace page. Granted, it was gratifying to read recently in The Miami Herald about his crude animus toward Mexicans ("soft a-- wannabe thugs") and his reference to a former girlfriend as an "ex-hoe." Given the way white supremacists and other Zimmerman supporters have exaggerated and manufactured evidence to paint Zimmerman's unarmed 17-year-old victim, Trayvon Martin, as a thug who somehow deserved shooting, this unflattering portrait offers the same satisfaction one feels any time the goose is basted with sauce that was prepared for the gander.

But ultimately, Zimmerman's online profile is as irrelevant as Trayvon's to any real understanding of the social dynamics that were at play the night the boy was shot to death. Worse, our fixation on this ephemera, the need on the one hand to make Trayvon some dark gangsta straight from Central Casting and on the other to find a Klan hood in the back of Zimmerman's closet, suggests a shallow, even naive, understanding of the role race seems to have played in this tragedy.

The trap of Affirmative Action

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:08:19 PDT

This fall the Supreme Court will hear Fisher v. University of Texas, a case that could decide the fate of racial preferences in the college admissions process. And here's a perfect example of why education's affirmative action and diversity initiatives should focus on socioeconomic status rather than race and ethnicity: Elizabeth Warren.

It turns out that Warren, a Harvard law professor who decided to challenge Sen. Scott Brown after she was passed over as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has in the past identified herself as a minority -- 1/32nd Native American, to be exact. Warren's great-great-great-grandmother was Cherokee.

Nuking Dick Lugar with disingenuous ads

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:08:25 PDT

When Indiana Republicans go to the polls on Tuesday, they will do more than choose a candidate for the Senate. They will choose between party and country.

That's a stark assessment, but true. On one side is a man who has made it his life's work to build a cross-aisle consensus for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states. On the other side is a man who mocks his opponent for such work and who talks more about fighting Democrats than America's enemies.

The left's favorite bad statistic about women

Mon, 07 May 2012 12:37:53 PDT

Archimedes didn't say, "Give me a bad statistic, and I will move the Earth." But that was only because the ancient Greek mathematician wasn't familiar with the ways of Washington.

An entire movement has grown up around the factoid that American women make about 80 percent of the pay of men. It is a reliable talking point of Democrats who insist the country is racked by a "War on Women."