Editorials elsewhere: Romney hit the right notes

Last update: December 10, 2007 - 2:10 PM

Until Thursday, Mitt Romney appeared to be running for president while running from his Mormon faith. With his speech, "Faith in America," he embraced his church, without much explanation, while making an eloquent case for religious tolerance and the separation of church and state, much as John Kennedy did in 1960. ...

Romney is right that no candidate should be a spokesman for his church. He is running for government office, not for Mormon Apologist of the Year. Besides, attempting to explain every distinctive doctrine of the LDS Church would only ensnare him in a bottomless pit of religious controversy that has little to do with public policy. ...

Perhaps his finest rhetorical flourish came when he said that, if elected, his presidential oath would become his "highest promise to God." On that score, what more could he say?

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, DEC. 7

Lott chooses cash over his constituents

Shame on Trent Lott. The senior senator from Mississippi can dress up his resignation any way he wants, but the obvious conclusion is that he wants to jump on the lobbyist gravy train before the rules change, and he doesn't mind stiffing his constituents to do it.

Lott, who once led the Senate, announced [two weeks ago] he would resign, not just early, but before this year ends, just over three weeks from now. Why the rush? Lott, who won reelection only a year ago and has five years left to serve, disingenuously says that, after 35 years in Washington, he has suddenly realized "it's time to do something else."

That something else is almost certainly lobbying. On Jan. 1, a new law takes effect prohibiting congressmen and senators from lobbying their former colleagues for two years. By stiffing his constituents before year's end, he has to wait only one year -- a year that, no doubt, will be worth millions of dollars to a lobbyist who was once the Senate majority leader. ...

Maybe he'll change his mind, but he's clearly leaving his options open and leaving Mississippians in the lurch. You'd hope for better from a U.S. senator.

BUFFALO NEWS, DEC. 7

Beware of a 'banana'

It is considered bad form in the nation's capital to say "recession" out loud for fear the mere mention will bring one on. ... President Jimmy Carter's anti-inflation czar, economist Alfred Kahn, was admonished for his use of that taboo word. Kahn announced that, henceforth, he would use the word "banana" to describe two or more consecutive quarters of economic shrinkage. To break the '70s cycle of stagnation and inflation, he said, might take "the worst banana you ever saw," and in the early '80s Kahn was proved not too terribly wrong.

The one permissible official use of "recession" is to dismiss the prospects of one, which Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke did indirectly Thursday. Bernanke said the credit crunch, housing slump, energy prices and volatile markets "seem likely to create some headwinds for the consumer in the months ahead."

Headwinds, but not recession. ... We understand the Washington tradition of not uttering the "R" word, but we're fooling ourselves if we don't brace for the strong possibility of a banana in our future.

SAN ANGELO STANDARD-TIMES, DEC. 4

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