From the editorial pages |

We know that GMD isn't your whole media diet, but this morning there are some new editorials and columns that merit your attention.

First off, this week's Seven Days features a great column by Paul Heintzabout the race for State Treasurer. We share his pleasure at the fact that Beth Pearce's campaign has gotten into gear, but what is really striking is this:

Allow me to be the first reporter in Vermont to admit that I am in no way qualified to judge whether Beth Pearce is a good state treasurer. I have a hard enough time balancing my own checkbook.

And consider me guilty of Perkinson’s charge: I’m far more interested in covering the latest Wilton accusation than I am in Vermont’s nearly impeccable bond rating, for which Pearce can rightfully take a lion’s share of the credit.

But I consider myself a decent judge of integrity. And one thing I’ve found during this campaign is that Pearce appears to have a lot of it and Wilton does not.

Even for people who don't pay much attention between elections to what the Treasurer does, this is a very powerful conclusion. I encourage you to read the entire column to get the full sense of where Paul's coming from.

On the national scene, it's no surprise who the people around here are supporting, but I have rarely seen the case made as clearly as in this week's New Yorker. I've seen people make sport of this editorial, joking that the New Yorker endorsement guarantees Obama's reelection (note that the GMD style book doesn't call for the New Yorker dieresis); although it's undoubtedly true that most New Yorker readers are Democrats, the substance is what is essential here.

The New Yorker editorial provides historical and cultural context, an appreciation of the dire situation facing the newly inaugurated President in 2009, and a recognition of the difficulties adhering to President Obama's reelection campaign. Nevertheless, the editorial also sets forth an effective rejoinder to the hateful comments of the “no difference caucus” whose voice is heard so commonly on the Left.

The President has achieved a run of ambitious legislative, social, and foreign-policy successes that relieved a large measure of the human suffering and national shame inflicted by the Bush Administration. Obama has renewed the honor of the office he holds.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—the $787-billion stimulus package—was well short of what some economists, including Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, thought the crisis demanded. But it was larger in real dollars than any one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal measures. It reversed the job-loss trend—according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as many as 3.6 million private-sector jobs have been created since June, 2009—and helped reset the course of the economy. It also represented the largest public investment in infrastructure since President Eisenhower’s interstate-highway program. From the start, though, Obama recognized that it would reap only modest political gain. “It’s very hard to prove a counterfactual,” he told the journalist Jonathan Alter, “where you say, ‘You know, things really could have been a lot worse.’ ” He was speaking of the bank and auto-industry bailouts, but the problem applies more broadly to the stimulus: harm averted is benefit unseen.

As for systemic reform, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which Obama signed into law in July, 2010, tightened capital requirements on banks, restricted predatory lending, and, in general, sought to prevent abuses of the sort that led to the crash of 2008. Against the counsel of some Republicans, including Mitt Romney, the Obama Administration led the takeover, rescue, and revival of the automobile industry. The Administration transformed the country’s student-aid program, making it cheaper for students and saving the federal government sixty-two billion dollars—more than a third of which was put back into Pell grants. AmeriCorps, the country’s largest public-service program, has been tripled in size.

Obama’s most significant legislative achievement was a vast reform of the national health-care system. Five Presidents since the end of the Second World War have tried to pass legislation that would insure universal access to medical care, but all were defeated by deeply entrenched opposition. Obama—bolstered by the political cunning of the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi—succeeded. Some critics urged the President to press for a single-payer system—Medicare for all. Despite its ample merits, such a system had no chance of winning congressional backing. Obama achieved the achievable. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the single greatest expansion of the social safety net since the advent of Medicaid and Medicare, in 1965. Not one Republican voted in favor of it.

. . .

President Obama’s commitment to civil rights has gone beyond rhetoric. During his first week in office, he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which protects women, minorities, and the disabled against unfair wage discrimination. By ending the military’s ban on the service of those who are openly gay, and by endorsing marriage equality, Obama, more than any previous President, has been a strong advocate of the civil rights of gay men and lesbians. Finally, Obama appointed to the Supreme Court two highly competent women, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the Court’s first Hispanic. Kagan and Sotomayor are skilled and liberal-minded Justices who, abjuring dogmatism, represent a sober and sensible set of jurisprudential values.

The editorial is long, three full pages, and it catalogues the array of reasons to support Obama and oppose Romney without giving ammunition to the fraudulent claims that Obama supporters are worshipful admirers blind to his shortcomings.

As with the Paul Heintz column, I recommend you read the entire thing, and then go out and vote for President Obama.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/10/29/121029taco_talk_editors#ixzz2AJMl3B5J

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