Opinion

Daniel Weintraub Bee columnist Daniel Weintraub keeps tabs on California politics in his California Insider blog.

New blog At Crossroads, a panel of experts and the public debate the future of health care in California. We'd like you to join the conversation.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Editorial: Tawdry spectacle

Saddam's hanging fuels sectarian animosity

Even many people who support the death penalty must have cringed at the sight and sound of Saddam Hussein's final moments. What they heard and saw smacked more of sectarian vengeance than impartial Iraqi justice....(more)

---

Editorial: Platinum Parking, R.I.P.

For Sacramento train riders, a nightmare is over. At the downtown depot, the parking lot is no longer operated by Platinum Parking, with its maddening array of automated gates, machines and rules. The lot is now owned by the city as part of Union Pacific's sale of the railyard and depot....(more)

Editorial: Genocide memorial

Another bill to build yet another monument in Capitol Park has become law. This time legislators authorized construction of an "International Genocide Memorial" to commemorate the millions of innocents across the globe who have been victims of state-sponsored genocide....(more)

Letters: Pay, gambling, crime, etc.

State salaries aren't competitive

...(more)

Peter Schrag: Statesmanship: Will it be a new course for CTA?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger got no end of attention last year for the radical change of course and tone that followed the mauling his bash-em agenda got in the special election of 2005....(more)

Ruben Navarrette: Maximum good from higher minimum wage

Populism sure is popular, especially with many Americans -- even families with six-figure incomes -- living paycheck to paycheck....(more)

Paul Greenberg: There's still a war to win

There has always been something indecent about the revenge a mob takes on a tyrant once it is safe to do so....(more)

Eugene Robinson: Heated civil war next for Iraq?

Since history is written by those who rule, the annals of the U.S.-supported Iraqi government record that the deposed dictator Saddam Hussein was given a fair trial, sentenced to death for the mass murder of innocent Shiite civilians and duly executed by hanging on Dec. 30, 2006, in accordance with Iraqi law. A tragic era was brought to an end, according to the official history, opening the way for a brighter tomorrow....(more)

Quang X. Pham: Ford's finest legacy

"Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned. ... (T)hese events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America's leadership in the world."...(more)

Paul Theroux: America the overfull

American crowing is harmless enough, but the announcement this year that the U.S. population had reached 300 million, had (to my ear) the unmistakable growl of a boast. It was as though the colossal agglomeration of people amounted to another great score in our love affair with bigness....(more)

Jennifer Daskal: Congress must restore basic rights

Five year after President Bush opened the hastily built detention center at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, nearly 400 men, so-called unlawful enemy combatants, remain trapped there. Not a single one of these allegedly high-level terrorists have been brought to trial for their crimes and only 10 have ever been charged. This means that neither the prisoners nor the American public have gotten the accounting they deserve....(more)

Bob Woodward: Ford on Vietnam

Upon becoming president in August 1974, Gerald R. Ford faced the task of ending a war -- a war not of his own making. In two wide-ranging interviews with Ford conducted in 2004 and 2005 by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Christine Parthemore, the former president revealed the depths of his disillusionment and frustration during the final years and months of the Vietnam War. The interviews, excerpted below, were granted on the condition that they not be made public until Ford's death....(more)

---

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

• Editorial: Protect conservation

• Editorial: Jailhouse informants

• Letters: Iraq, affirmative action, etc.

• Mike Villines: In prison reform, public safety is first

• William Safire: What will be big news in '07? The choice is yours

---

Monday, January 1, 2007

• Editorial: Dream speech

• LETTERS: HOLIDAY, HEALTH, TRANSIT, ETC.

• David S. Broder: The day of reckoning for a political columnist

• Joseph Lieberman: Why U.S. needs more troops in Iraq

• William H. Chafe: New spirit of hope is arising from ruins in New Orleans

---

Sunday, December 31, 2006

• Cartoonist Rex Babin gazes into the future

• Editorial: Will 2007 be year of unity or division for region?

• Letters to the editor

• Daniel Weintraub: California's quality of life improves ... mostly

• The Blog Watch

• Rick Horowitz: All I got for Christmas was a ...

• Public Editor: Year of changes for newspapers, and more coming

• Feedback: Real-world economics, Bush bashing, etc.

Sacbee Ad Links	Buy a link here