N.E. Editorial Roundup
Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass., Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006:
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that those who disagree with the Bush administration's Iraq record suffer from "moral or intellectual confusion" and are cowardly appeasers of "a new type of fascism."
The "appeasement" line is clever, recalling the Nazis, the biggest evil of the 20th century. It's also a low rhetorical trick. Rumsfeld is building a straw man the administration can knock down. Faced with polls that show over 60 percent of Americans dissatisfied with the administration's performance in Iraq, and going into fall elections, Rumsfeld is changing the subject.
Nobody is urging appeasement of enemies. What the administration's critics want is performance. They want ideas and strategies that work better than what we have now.
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a pro-military Vietnam veteran, is not appeasing when he critiques the mistakes Rumsfeld and crew have made, worries about the health of the armed forces and pleads for a new strategy that limits our losses.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona is not appeasing fascism when he candidly admits that mistakes were made and the project is not working as intended to promote our very real interests in the region.
In the words of Sen. Edward Kennedy, "Secretary Rumsfeld is the last person who should preach the lessons of history after ignoring them for the last six years. He's been consistently wrong since he rushed to war with a country that had nothing to do with the real threat to America -- the global war on terror."
Polls show a majority of Americans have already made the distinction between Islamic terror threats and sectarian street fighting in an unstable Iraq.
It is Rumsfeld and the administration team that deployed this week that wants to "confuse" the issues.
Recent events in Great Britain show anti-Western terror threats are still festering among disaffected young Muslims even in prosperous Europe. Despite our efforts, it thrives in the wilds of Afghanistan and Pakistan and even in the societies of our erstwhile oil allies in the region.
It's not a contradiction to hold the Bush administration responsible for the unsupportable, frustrating conditions in Iraq.
No one, Democrat nor Republican, can claim an iron-clad, crystal-ball plan to stave off an even wider geopolitical disruption in the region, but new and better ideas -- not self-serving defensiveness -- are what is needed. With his insults, Rumsfeld is saying the administration will harbor no criticism. It's easier to call people names, the last refuge of an empty argument.
The most despicable part of this entrenched position is that it sacrifices genuine American patriotism, not to mention soldiers' blood and national wealth, on the altar of political survival in the fall elections.
The Republican, Springield, Mass., Wednesday, August 30, 2006:
Students from the high school class of 2006 who are unhappy with their SAT scores can be consoled by the news that they apparently have a lot of company.
The class of 2006 -- the first to take a new longer exam and additional writing section -- recorded the sharpest drop in SAT scores in 31 years, according to figures released this week by the College Board. And while Massachusetts still scored above the national average score of 503 in reading and 518 in math, Bay State SAT scores registered the first decline in 14 years with reading scores falling to 513 from 520 in 2005 and math dropping to 524 from 527.
Massachusetts scored 510 on the new writing exam, above the national average of 497.
State Education Commissioner David Driscoll called the decline "disturbing." But even more disturbing was the achievement gap among races, with white and Asian students scoring better than black and Hispanic students in all three tests.
Suprisingly, the results come two weeks after the rival ACT exam announced that the class of 2006 had posted the biggest score increase in 20 years.
What are we to make of the disparity?
Since both tests are accepted by most colleges requiring standardized tests, students might be tempted to shift their allegiance to the ACT test. Perhaps this year's dip in SAT scores is a blip on the radar screen -- the kind that occurs when students adjust to a new type of test. In the meantime, college admissions officials should look beyond the SAT and ACT scores to size up a student's readiness and aptitude for college work.
Some colleges are making the SAT optional. George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., was the latest to announce that it was dropping the requirement for some students. Locally, prestigious Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley has made the SAT an optional requirement.
But since the vast majority of schools still use the test as a guide, students must endure its rigors. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
In one of its publications, the College Board itself, had this sage advice:
"Above all, remember that the SAT does not measure your worth as a person, nor is it branding for life. The test is a snapshot of a limited set of academic skills taken at a particular point in your academic career."
