Caucasian Killers
The New York
Times , Washington Post , and USA Today all lead with the 271-156 House vote to
prohibit doctor-assisted suicide--an American Medical Association-supported
bill intended to overturn an Oregon law. (Oregon voters have approved the
suicide measure twice, with majorities of 51 percent and 60 percent.) The bill
has strong support in the Senate, although the Post says a Democrat is threatening to filibuster. It is unknown
whether President Clinton would sign it if passed. The Los Angeles Times ' top
non-local lead is the assassination of eight Armenian politicians--including
the prime minister--inside the parliament chamber. This story tops the
Wall Street Journal 's
"Worldwide" box, off-leads at the Post , goes below-the-fold at the
NYT (which runs a dramatic video-still of the assassination attempt),
and gets reefered by USAT . The NYT off-leads the serious, gentlemanly debate between Al Gore and Bill
Bradley in New Hampshire, a story fronted by the LAT and reefered
(with front-page pictures) by USAT and the Post .
The three Armenian assassins shot Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian and much
of his Cabinet at close range, then took dozens of hostages. The Armenian
president, Robert Kocharian, negotiated with the terrorists for about 10 hours
before the gunmen--apparently nationalists angry at the prime minister's
land-for-peace negotiations with neighboring Azerbaijan--gave themselves up.
(Islamic Azerbaijan lost control of the mostly Christian territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia earlier this decade.) Sarkisian's murder came just
an hour after seeing off U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott (a
sometime
Slate
contributor), who was mediating the peace
talks. The Post notes that Armenia is one of the highest per-capita
recipients of U.S. foreign aid, and the negotiations with Azerbaijan are a
special project of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
All the papers describe the Gore-Bradley debate as an amicable affair.
Wearing a brown jacket and maroon tie, Gore was more aggressive than Bradley,
taking questions from the audience 20 minutes before the cameras rolled and
charging that Bradley's health-care plan would eat the entire $1 trillion (over
10 years) surplus. Bradley brushed aside most of Gore's criticisms at first,
then disputed then calmly later on. The Post says that Bradley passed up a questioner's invitation to
attack Gore for 1996 campaign-finance abuses. (For Ballot Box's take on the
debate, click here.)
On the NYT op-ed page, former Reagan administration diplomat Paul
H. Nitze argues that America should unilaterally destroy its nuclear
weapons. Retaliatory nuclear strikes are never justified, he argues, because
they would kill millions of innocents. Instead, the U.S. should use its
pinpoint conventional missiles to make both pre-emptive and retaliatory strikes
against nuclear terrorists and rogue states.
Journal editorial-board member John H. Fund opines that many of John McCain's longtime GOP associates from
Arizona--many of them now less-than-adoring of the senator--could have
predicted McCain's Nixonian reaction to Monday's mildly critical NYT
story (he accused the Bush campaign of "planting" the story in the
Times to smear him; see yesterday's TP). Fund
says McCain's hypersensitivity should give pause to his acolytes in the
national media. McCain has "courage and candor," Fund writes. "But a president
can't rule by heroic example alone; he must build and lead a team. In light of
Mr. McCain's record and reputation in Arizona [as temperamental], one must ask
how effective a Lone Ranger like him would be in the White House."
The Post reports on the latest hot Internet startup: a llama
auction
site. Run by a computer techie at NIH who moonlights as a breeder at the
"Llamarada" farm in Virginia, Llamaweb.com lets you search for your woolly pet
by gender and personality type, and even offers a "mini-herd discount" for
group sales. Today's Papers has taken a liking to "PHL
Gem Dandy," the Chilean female with the cute inky-black face, described as
"suitable for use as a companion" and "very docile/willing." TP will have to
ask his landlord before bidding, though. (He might have to settle for the
cashmere goat.)
