Kautzman’s AP GO PO Blog

Kathleen Parker Orlando Sentinel October 16, 2007

It can’t be easy being a first lady. She’s the wife-in-chief in a traditional role, but she also has a brain. And she has a voice, though it is usually muted or restricted to safe “womanly” concerns – home, hearth and domestic issues such as health, education and child care. When the first lady does step into the policy arena, as Hillary Clinton did during her husband’s first term, she faces not just scrutiny of her work, but criticism of her audacity. Doesn’t she know her place? Despite role changes beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – and notwithstanding the groundbreaking exception of Eleanor Roosevelt – we seem to prefer that our presidents’ wives (and perhaps husbands?) tend to the china and holiday decorations. Until just recently, Laura Bush had been a quintessential Missus, mostly confining her interests to such uncontroversial concerns as reading. Reading is good. See Mrs. Bush read. See Mrs. Bush smile. Every now and then, we get to see Mrs. Bush quip, as when she spoke at the 2005 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. When she tried to participate in the larger world, however, she tended to get in trouble and then retreat from the spotlight. In 2005 while touring Egypt, for instance, she was criticized for praising Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for taking a “very bold step” toward democracy with an election that many viewed as a sham. She also took heat a couple of years earlier from a group of American poets who responded to her invitation to a poetry conference by submitting anti-war poems or declining in protest. Ultimately, Mrs. Bush canceled the affair. The first lady got her knuckles rapped later for comments made during the Harriet Miers debacle. As liberals and conservatives alike scratched their heads over President Bush’s nomination of Miers to the Supreme Court – a tipping point for many previously loyal Republicans who could no longer defend the president – Laura Bush suggested that sexism was at play. Sexism is the mating call of the left, not the right, her critics howled. Again, Mrs. Bush retreated. And then a few days ago, Laura Bush came out with her dukes up. The serenely benign first lady has become feisty of late and for a cause few could find reason to criticize. She’s steamed about Burma’s brutal military government, which recently clamped down on dissidents, killing several and detaining up to 6,000. Most Americans are by now familiar with news and images of tangerine-clad monks protesting in the streets, but they may know little about Aung San Suu Kyi. A Nobel Prize winner and icon of Burma’s democratic movement, she has been under house arrest for nearly 12 of the past 18 years. Laura Bush wants her released, and she wants the military regime to step aside. Well, somebody had to say it. Wednesday, Mrs. Bush had an article in the Wall Street Journal decrying the treatment of Buddhist monks rounded up and imprisoned under inhumane conditions. The “Saffron Revolution,” which was sparked by a 500 percent increase in regime-controlled gas prices, has “unleashed 19 years of pent-up national anger,” Mrs. Bush wrote. It would seem that it also unleashed seven years of the first lady’s pent-up emotions. Burma, and especially the plight of Suu Kyi, got Mrs. Bush’s attention in 2002 when a Bush cousin told her about the imprisoned woman. Since then, Mrs. Bush has followed the story and last year began urging the United Nations to take action. When the first lady speaks, apparently not just her husband listens. Last Tuesday, she received a call from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, urging her to continue her efforts. He also promised that he would send the U.N.’s special envoy back to the region as soon as possible and would encourage neighboring countries to pressure Burmese leaders to shift power to a democratic form of government. President Bush, meanwhile, has increased economic pressure on Burma, directing the U.S. Treasury Department to freeze assets of 14 senior members of the Burmese junta. Europe also has tightened sanctions. Hating juntas and demanding freedom for monks and women warriors for democracy may not be the riskiest political move in American history. But Mrs. Bush’s voice has hit the right note and telegraphs to those in danger and despair that through her they have the ear of the world’s most powerful leader. A first lady’s voice is a terrible thing to waste.

Fred Hiatt
Washington Post
October 16, 2007

Imagine what the Armenian diaspora might have accomplished had it worked as hard for democracy in Armenia as it did for congressional recognition of the genocide Armenians suffered nearly a century ago. It’s even possible that modern Armenia would be as democratic as modern Turkey.

The Armenian American community notched a political victory last week when the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27 to 21 for a resolution demanding that the U.S. government acknowledge that Turkey committed genocide against the Armenian people early in the 20th century. The Turkish government insists that, while terrible things happened, there was no genocide. The Bush administration, reluctant to offend an important ally, lobbied hard against the resolution.

There are passionate arguments on both sides of this fight: the urgency of facing history honestly, on one hand; unease over attempting to resolve such matters by political declaration, on the other. But what is sad, when members of Congress are hailing the vote as a victory for human rights, is how poorly human rights fare in Armenia today.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, none of its 15 component republics seemed better poised to evolve democratically than Armenia. A beautiful country of mountains and pastures and vineyards, it had a clearer sense of national identity than most, with a long pre-Soviet history as a nation; its own language, alphabet and church; and a passionate diaspora, many of whose members were ready to bring not only their skills but also their habits of democracy and civil society to Yerevan. Of an estimated 10 million ethnic Armenians in the world, only 3 million dwell in Armenia; more than 2 million live in Russia, but about 1.5 million are in the United States.

Things began well, with the honest election of a former dissident as president. But authoritarian tendencies soon emerged, the former dissident rigged his re-election in 1996, and things went downhill from there. As Freedom House noted last year, “all national elections held in Armenia since independence have been marred by some degree of ballot stuffing, vote rigging, and similar irregularities.” Meanwhile, opposition politicians have been jailed, protests have been brutally suppressed, and broadcast media have been taken under government control.

Conditions in Armenia are better than in some post-Soviet republics. Though corruption is endemic, the economy is growing and ranks relatively high in some measures of freedom for private enterprise. A parliamentary election in the spring was conducted more fairly than past polls. The ruling oligarchs tolerate some opposition parties, nongovernmental organizations and non-official newspapers.

But conditions also are a lot worse than in some republics, notably Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Many members of their diasporas also returned to their ancestral homelands, where they became passionate advocates not only of national rebirth but also of democracy and corruption-free capitalism.

Why the difference? Armenia was sidetracked early on by a war with neighboring Azerbaijan over an Armenian enclave inside that country. The enclave is under Armenian control today, but a cease-fire has not given way to a peace settlement. Consequently, the two main Armenian American lobbying organizations in Washington have focused more on security questions – opposing arms sales to Azerbaijan, for example, and opposing Turkey, Azerbaijan’s ally – than on promoting democracy in Yerevan. Armenia’s rulers have known that, no matter how they trample on individual rights at home, the lobbying groups will cover for them here.

The heads of both U.S. organizations told me that their groups have worked, sometimes quietly, to promote human rights and civil society in Armenia. Undoubtedly their influence would be limited, no matter how hard they tried.

But what if they had tried as fervently as they did to win Wednesday’s vote? It’s hard not to think that 3 million Armenians might be less poor and more free than they are today.

U.S. needs programs to keep kids out of groups in first place

The Baltimore Sun
October 16, 2007

The following editorial appeared Monday in the Baltimore Sun.

The proliferation of gangs in American cities has led to calls for new federal laws and tougher penalties to stem gang violence. Locking up more gang members may deplete their ranks, but only until the next teenager becomes the newest recruit. It’s the wrong approach to the real solution, which is keeping youngsters from joining a gang in the first place.

We question the need for new laws because there are few crimes unique to gangs. Their members – no matter their colors – murder, steal, sell drugs, extort money, beat up rivals and intimidate witnesses.

Prosecutors in Maryland and elsewhere have successfully used federal laws to convict and imprison notorious gang members, but what’s lacking is a sustained public effort to protect kids from the lure of gangs.

Federal legislation pending in Congress would commit $1.1 billion for law enforcement and prevention efforts to attack gang problems that are consuming manpower and money in cities as different as Baltimore and Boise.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Dianne Feinstein, of California, would criminalize gang activity that is already a crime and outlaw recruitment for the purposes of committing a crime for the gang.

While the Feinstein bill provides $447 million for prevention, its thrust is enforcement. But keeping kids out of gangs in the first place would save millions of dollars now spent to arrest, convict and imprison them as lawbreakers.

Experts say that kids who join gangs are looking for the family support or stable home they lack. They need comprehensive programs in and out of school that nurture kinship and camaraderie among youths and, more obviously, stronger families. Baltimore, like other cities, must rely on a patchwork of programs to serve kids at risk for gang membership.

The Feinstein bill would increase funding for prevention programs, but the effort should be robust enough to underwrite an extensive campaign to counter gang life.

The legislation rightly recognizes the increasing problem of witness intimidation and dedicates $270 million to combat it. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, of Maryland, has been a forceful advocate for this aid because of Baltimore’s experience with witnesses who have been victimized.

When House members take up the Feinstein bill and other anti-gang measures, they should remember that tougher enforcement alone leads to only one place – prison.