Continued: Editorial voices: Clinton should continue if she wishes, but must keep it clean

There is a lot of talk that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is now fated to lose the Democratic nomination and should pull out of the race. We believe it is her right to stay in the fight and challenge Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as long as she has the desire and the means to do so. That is the essence of the democratic process.

But we believe just as strongly that Clinton will be making a terrible mistake -- for herself, her party and for the nation -- if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones. We believe it would also be a terrible mistake if she launches a fight over the disqualified delegations from Florida and Michigan. ...

We endorsed Clinton, and we know that she has a major contribution to make. But instead of discussing her strong ideas, Clinton claimed in an interview with USA Today that she would be the better nominee because a recent poll showed that "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." She added: "There's a pattern emerging here."

Yes, there is a pattern -- a familiar and unpleasant one.

NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 9

Invasive species

Although we have supported states acting to stem the flow of invasive species into the Great Lakes by more closely regulating the ballast water of oceangoing freighters, the best way to address the issue is at the federal level. And at long last, the feds are starting to move.

The House recently passed the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act, which would, among other things, require all ships entering U.S. waters to treat their ballast water to get rid of foreign species along for the ride. The Senate now needs to act -- and act soon -- before the politics of an election year overwhelm all other business.

MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, MAY 9

Plow it under

After weeks of wheeling and dealing, a House-Senate conference committee has finally produced a farm bill. And what an unlovely creation it is. The nearly $300 billion, five-year legislation brims with subsidies for everything from biofuels to historic-barn preservation. It includes a dubious sugar-to-ethanol program and billions of dollars for a permanent disaster relief fund that essentially pays farmers to grow crops on land too dry to sustain them. And it perpetuates the multibillion-dollar system of direct payments to corn, wheat, rice, cotton and soybean growers, with only minimal limitations on how much of this corporate welfare rich farmers can receive.

To be sure, food stamps and other nutrition programs account for about two-thirds of the bill's cost. These would grow by roughly $10 billion, a needed increase, given rising food prices. Attaching wasteful subsidies to the poor's nutritional safety net is the oldest trick in the agriculture politics book. ...The farm bill's advocates are counting on this old gambit to ensure final passage of their overstuffed turkey. ... President Bush should veto the bill, as he has all but threatened to do, and Congress should deny it the two-thirds vote in both houses necessary to override.

WASHINGTON POST, APRIL 9

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