The Navy: More Tail, More Hooking
The top non-local story at the Los Angeles Times is the satellite detection of an
apparent Pacific Ocean temperature pattern--much bigger than any El Niño--that
has scientists arguing about whether the world is about to experience a
decadeslong climate change that might include droughts in Southern California.
The Washington Post fronts this weather whether but goes
instead with Michael Jordan's return to the NBA--as an executive and part owner
with the Washington Wizards. USA Today does a front-page "cover story" on Jordan
but leads with the deadly fire at Seton Hall University and the general topic
of campus fire safety. The paper points out some facts of the tragedy that are
typical: an older building not required to have sprinkler systems and a lulling
frequency of false fire alarms. The New York Times fronts the weather
and the fire but goes with the Federal Communications Commission's plan to open
up radio to hundreds of small broadcasting operations via its approval of
non-commercial low-power FM radio stations. The story says that the nation's
largest broadcasters are opposed to the plan but that the FCC chairman
champions it as promising to bring many new voices to the airwaves that have
not previously had an outlet. All of which makes the reader wonder if the
Times has ever heard of cable access TV, which has no affect whatsoever
on major broadcasters and is execrable.
The LAT fronts the growth last year of union membership, which is
noted inside elsewhere. The paper explains the swell--the biggest increase in
the past 20 years--as a function of the booming economy's job creation and of
the slowing down in the late '90s of the flight of manufacturing jobs to other
countries.
The WP fronts and the Wall Street Journal tops its front-page news box with
President Clinton's unveiling yesterday of his 10-year $110 billion health-care
plan, which Clinton called the biggest government investment in health since
Medicare. As the papers report, the plan, which extends the government subsidy
to the parents of the poor children who are now covered and employs subsidies
and credits to encourage people to get coverage between jobs or prior to
qualifying for Medicare, is much more like Al Gore's than Bill Bradley's, and
in any case is not likely to get much Republican support.
The WP fronts another in its series on presidential candidates, this
one on John McCain. (By the way, why does McCain rate only a two-parter, when
Gore got many times that?) The main point of the story seems to be that McCain
has long been fiercely stubborn, as exemplified by his shunning for 27 years
the fellow POW who he admits saved his life, because the man accepted an early
return home from Hanoi.
The LAT and NYT report that yesterday a nephew of Robert F.
Kennedy, Michael Skakel, was charged with a 25-year-old Connecticut beating and
stabbing murder of a 15-year-old girl. The crime had been the
subject of a novel by Dominick Dunne and more recently of a nonfiction effort
by Mark Fuhrman, the latter concluding that Skakel was the likely perpetrator.
The first big issue in the case, say the papers: Should the 39-year-old Skakel,
who was 15 in 1975, be tried as an adult or as a juvenile? A hearing on this
issue will be held shortly. The coverage is mum about whether or not the
Supreme Court has ever ruled on this issue, which surely must have come up
before, no?
The WP 's Howard Kurtz reports that the NYT , WP , and
USAT and other papers had arrangements with the U.S. government's
anti-drug office similar to the one the office had with the TV networks. The
story quotes the NYT editorial page editor, Howell Raines, as saying
that he knew absolutely nothing about this when he recently wrote an editorial
excoriating the TV arrangement. The NYT reports that the government has
announced that, while the financial incentive program for TV anti-drug messages
will continue, the practice of prior script review by the U.S. anti-drug office
will not.
The NYT reports that on Wednesday, the Navy announced it was
restoring its ties to Tailhook, the private naval aviation booster club whose
1991 convention was the scene of rampant sexual misconduct by numerous naval
aviators. In the days ahead there will be much discussion about whether or not
the Navy has in the interim become fairer to women, but let's see if the papers
also get on top of the re-emergence of another scandal: the amount of taxpayer
money and military flight time used to send naval aviators to Vegas for most of
a week.
The WP features an op-ed primer on State of the Union
speeches by former Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldman. Cutest nuance noted:
The "Delay Delay"--the amount of time it takes for Speaker of the House Dennis
Hastert to figure out whether he finds something President Clinton says should
be applauded or not, so-called because apparently the key step in the speaker's
process is being able to see what the House Whip thinks.
