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A Quick Look at Bloomberg News's Opinion Section for Feb. 28, 2012

Michigan threatens to be Mitt Romney's Waterloo, largely because of his
controversial stance against the auto bailouts. And, even if he survives,
won't President Obama have a general-election ace up his sleeve with the
issue? "Truth is, there’s less distance between Obama and Romney on this
than either cares to admit," respond the View editors. "Obama praises the
role played by the United Automobile Workers and celebrates that he went to
great lengths to rescue an iconic American industry from profligate
management. It was, he boasts, taxpayer money well spent, with nary a word
about union demands for unaffordable pension and health-care benefits in
exchange for labor peace. This preferred line papers over a lot of what
caused Detroit’s descent. Romney, on the other hand, cannot decide whether
to attack the intervention as an improper use of public funds or praise it
as a managed bankruptcy of the very kind he favored all along. Not the
deftest of candidates, he does both." So, who's right? "The rescues,
including the money spent by the outgoing President George W. Bush, came to
$80 billion, about $17 billion of which taxpayers are unlikely to ever get
back," admit the editors. "The bankruptcies also forced big concessions on
all stakeholders in return for government support. Essentially, this was the
right outcome -- one that the companies’ managers and the UAW (Obama’s
praise for its role notwithstanding) both resisted ... The concessions
demanded of shareholders, management, creditors and the UAW were severe.
Obama has chosen not to mention the role the union played in bringing the
industry so low in the first place, and likes to portray the terms extracted
from it as a kind of noble sacrifice." [2]Link.
Links:
2. http://bloom.bg/z98SC6

"The Supreme Court’s decision to hear a major case challenging
affirmative-action policies at the University of Texas is widely seen as a
sign that the five conservative justices in the majority are ready to do
away with racial preferences in higher education," writes op-ed contributor
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg. "The prevailing legal view is that such a ruling
will reduce the number of black and Latino students at almost every
selective college and graduate school. But why does that have to be the
case?" It's a good question, and Trachtenberg, a former president of George
Washington University, answers it himself: "For generations colleges were
most inventive in finding ways to keep Jews and blacks out. Now they may
have an opportunity to use their wits to find the legal means to admit and
enroll multicultural classes without the use of affirmative action. My money
is on the universities, which were, after all, open for business before the
Constitution was drafted. Schools will work within the law, as they have in
the past, and they will be creative in responding to any court ruling as
they continue to fulfill their mission. After all, colleges are known for
their creative interpretation of the classics -- whether they are by
Shakespeare or the chief justice."[3] Link.
Links:
3. http://bloom.bg/x6Bp4F

"This week, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government will host a
conference called 'Israel/Palestine and the One State Solution,' whose goal
is to 'educate ourselves and others about the possible contours of a
one-state solution and the challenges that stand in the way of its
realization.' ” reports View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg. "The conference
will feature speakers such as Ali Abunimah, a veteran anti-Israel agitator,
and Harvard’s own Stephen M. Walt, co-author with John Mearsheimer of the
scapegoating Ur-text of anti-Israel argumentation, 'The Israel Lobby.' The
one-staters posit that they ... don’t seek the expulsion of Jews from
Palestine, they say, but instead the creation of a unified parliament that
would represent all Arabs and Jews between the river and the sea. Instead of
two ethnic-based states, they say, there would be one harmonious,
pluralistic democracy." Easy for Harvard, not so much for Israel, says
Goldberg: "In the best case, this new dystopia by the sea would be paralyzed
by endless argument ... There are people, perhaps including some of the
Harvard students organizing the conference, who advocate 'one-statism' out
of naivete. But the leaders of the movement are not naive. They understand
their project shares a goal with Hamas: the elimination of Israel as a
homeland and haven for Jews." [4]Link.
Links:
4. http://bloom.bg/A5IeQJ

Also, the View editors try to kick Puerto Rico's increasing drug habit;
columnist Edward Glaeser argues that cash aid is better for the poor than
food stamps; and columnist Ramesh Ponnuru says that small businesses
are getting left out of the tax-reform discussion.


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