A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Denver Post, Jan. 22, on how President Obama should approach his second term:
Largely freed from the encumbrances of historic magnitude, in addition to two wars and economic turmoil, that marked his inauguration in 2008, President Barack Obama focused on “setting this country’s course” for the future in his second inaugural address on Monday.
“Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time—but it does require us to act in our time,” he said.
The president put forward for action issues ranging from the federal budget to climate change, from equal rights for gays and lesbians to equal pay for women.
His emphasis on priorities embraced by the left calls into question whether Obama still intends to lead the nation beyond the partisan divide. But the current division of power between Democrats and Republicans in Washington will require olive branches on many, if not all, of the issues the president mentioned Monday.
With Republicans hinting at being willing to take on immigration reform, there are several other issues where pragmatism on the part of the president can lead to progress.
Obama called for making the “hard choices” to reduce health care costs and deficits while at the same time being mindful of the need to provide safety nets and to invest in education and research. Taking serious steps to reduce our debt will require a combination of new revenues and budget cutting. Obama can lead his party to a compromise—and push back against Republican calls for no additional revenue and deeper cuts—by embracing entitlement reforms for Americans who are not near retirement age.
He asserted that it is time to “respond to the threat of climate change.” Obama can build a larger coalition by becoming a more vocal proponent for natural gas, a bridge fuel that reduces carbon emissions and increases our energy independence.
The president also continued his evolution on gay rights, calling for “our gay brothers and sisters to be treated like anyone else under the law.” While the ultimate aim is for the federal government to legally recognize gay marriage, Obama would do well to push for civil unions as a first step.
As much as those who support the president—and we count ourselves among them—would like to see action on the issues he laid out in his second inaugural address, Obama’s agenda will be limited, for at least the next two years, by House Republicans. The president seemed to acknowledge as much near the end of his speech Monday.
“We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect,” he said. “We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and 40 years, and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.”
In the era of gridlock, even imperfect and partial work on critical issues should be welcome.
Editorial:
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The Gazette, Jan. 20, on Lance Armstrong’s TV confession to doping:
Public confessions of despicable behavior are all the rage among the rich and famous. Tell the camera tales of drug abuse and alcoholism, preferably with tearful eyes, and all related behavior shall be forgiven.
Cyclist Lance Armstrong upped the ante this month when he confessed to Oprah Winfrey his life as a fraud, liar, cheat and bully who has ruined the lives of others around him.
Hey, Armstrong: Owning up to it—especially without a hint of remorse—doesn’t make it OK. You remain a fraudulent, cheating liar who bullied your friends.
Armstrong’s confession competed for attention last week with the bizarre saga of Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o, who told the sad tale of losing his girlfriend to leukemia even though the girlfriend never lived.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tiger Woods cheated on their wives. Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulted numerous boys. Lindsay Lohan stole jewelry, fell out of her sundress on stage and drove drunk.
Google “celebrity scandals” and an endless array of stories appear. Famous people are human. Often, though not always, a fall from grace has the amazing ability to revive a stagnating career.
Poor behavior of the rich and famous, coupled with the NFL’s unmerciful rejection of Tim Tebow—a successful young quarterback with a talent for flaunting ostensibly good behavior—creates a dilemma for parents. Children are shown on a daily basis that drugs, alcohol and criminal behavior may come with rewards. They come with publicity, at the very least, and some believe bad attention beats no attention at all.
The time is long past that parents and the media stop viewing celebrities, initially famous for professional accomplishments, as icons worthy of emulation and praise. A succession of victories and a collection of trophies say little about the character of a woman or man.
If we conflate accomplishments with character, we must praise the CEO who generates enviable profits by exploiting employees or selling customers short for the sake of expedient gain.
We must praise the athlete who finds a way to cheat his way to success. We must praise the drunken actress for remaining in the spotlight for breaking the rules.
High achievers may have good character, but correlation is not cause. Men and women with poor character traits have as much ability to achieve, if not more, than individuals with great character.
Mothers and fathers, teach the difference between character and achievement before your children latch onto some celebrity who is likely to lie, steal, cheat or abuse those around him. Teach them to value acts of goodness, rather than conventional achievements.
Focus less on the victories of Denver quarterback Peyton Manning and more on his decision to quietly provide spectacular Thanksgiving meals last fall to 500 disadvantaged families. Scores of professional athletes give millions to help the people who were not born with above-average strength and skills.
Emphasize to children the story of Basque athlete Ivan Fernandez Anaya. He ran a Dec. 2 cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre, and found himself in a distant second place behind race leader Abel Mutai, of Kenya. Mutai mistakenly thought he had won the race about 10 meters before the finish line. It was an unlikely break for Anaya, who could overtake Mutai for the win. He chose to do something far greater.
“Instead of exploiting Mutai’s mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind and, using gestures, guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first,” reports Kellimni.com, a website devoted to helping youth in Malta.
Society must rethink how it chooses heroes. Stop confusing trophies, medals, fortune and fame with character. A man of low character would have taken the win, exploiting another athlete’s innocent mistake. A man of high character did the right thing, treating another person with compassion and respect at the expense of a conventional reward.
Good character isn’t accomplishment. It’s the way we treat the people around us.
Editorial:
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STATE:
The Pueblo Chieftain, Jan. 22, on a proposed ‘SmartGrid’ in Boulder that would have affected electricity customers across Colorado:
Xcel Energy has lost a bid to dun electricity customers $16.6 million across Colorado for a so-called SmartGrid in Boulder.
Even the city of Boulder opposed this proposal. But the utility’s largest customer, Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel, was the most vociferous in its opposition. Evraz is Xcel’s largest customer, and the cost of power for its steel re-melt furnaces is an important part of its product pricing. Also strongly opposed was the Climax Mine, another large user of Xcel power.
The SmartGrid is supposed to use technology that would manage electricity use from power plant to home appliances. The project’s price tag initially was $15 million, but the cost ballooned to $44.5 million and only about 100 homes were fully connected.
That’s not SmartGrid. It’s DumbGrid.
The Public Utilities Commission originally approved the project, but now an administrative law judge in Denver has ruled that Xcel had “provided little in the way of a strategic plan” or of direct benefits for customers. We’re glad Judge Paul Gomez used such good common sense in making his ruling.
Xcel officials say they may reapply to the PUC. Given Judge Gomez’s ruling, it would make sense for the PUC commissioners to heed it and not foist a new charge on Colorado customers to benefit a few denizens of the People’s Republic of Boulder.
Editorial:
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Aurora Sentinel, Jan. 18, on how Colorado lawmakers should address college tuition rates for illegal immigrants:
At long last, common sense, compassion and reality seem to be enveloping the state Capitol this year, and the General Assembly is poised to right a host of past wrongs.
One of those issues about to be corrected soon has to do with illegal immigrants who’ve spent much or most of their lives here and want to go to college. Democrats, who control both the House and Senate, are pushing through a measure granting in-state tuition for some illegal immigrants.
This issue isn’t about whether you think Mexicans sneaking across the border are to blame for some or all of this country’s woes. What’s behind a wrongly controversial bill to allow some illegal immigrants to get in-state college rates is about 500 people a year very much like Aurora’s Juan Carlos Banos.
Banos was a senior at Smoky Hill High School we wrote about last year. He’s an immigrant from El Salvador, a talented artist, an International Baccalaureate scholar and faces deportation if the government doesn’t allow him political asylum. And he wanted to go to college. If he attends a state college, he has to pay as much as much as five times what other Colorado residents do, because even though he’s lived here for much of his life, and even though he and his family have been an economic part of this community the whole time, even paying taxes, he doesn’t have the immigration credentials he needs to get in-state college tuition.
If he or the hundreds of other kids like him wanting to go to college had grown up in Texas or a growing number of states like Texas, this wouldn’t be an issue. There, illegal immigrants in similar situations qualify for in-state college tuition rates because lawmakers there realized everyone wins under such a system.
Not here, where too few state House Republicans were willing to cross party political lines and do the right thing. For seven years, legislation trying to rectify the situation and get kids like Banos to college died.
Such laws are popular even in conservative states because they make fiscal sense, and they make common sense.
The message to critics of this proposal needs to be clear: These are not illegal immigrants. These are children of illegal immigrants. They are the victims of their parents’ transgressions, not the perpetrators. Many of these children have lived almost their entire lives in Colorado or another state. Punishing them by withholding their only opportunity for higher education does not get them out of Colorado, nor does it punish their parents.
Many of these children grow up in local public schools, graduate and have the opportunity to make huge strides in their own lives, the lives of their families and their communities if they go to college.
Critics of the proposal say it rewards and encourages illegal immigration, and it’s unfair because legal immigrants don’t get the in-state discount. Those are the same sham arguments that kept the federal DREAM Act from passing, ignoring the practical side of educating people who will in all likelihood spend most or all of the rest of their lives in the United States.
Critics of this measure live in denial of the world around them. We cannot wish illegal immigrants out of the country any more than we can wish things were different in the Middle East.
Those voting against this bill punish innocent children whose lives could change drastically for the good by Colorado showing some real fairness, logic and compassion.
Editorial:
