Hank Kalet

Paul Krugman makes a convincing point about partisanship and why the folks who say “it’s the person, not the party” — at least at the national level; on the local level this plays out differently — are at best naive. He criticizes the Sierra Club for endorsing Lincoln Chafee for re-election to the U.S. Senate from Rhode Island.

The Sierra Club, rightly, points out that Sen. Chafee has been a reliable pro-environment vote.

The Sierra Club’s executive director defended the Chafee endorsement by saying, “We choose people, not parties.” And it’s true that Mr. Chafee has usually voted with environmental groups.

But while this principle might once have made sense, it’s just naïve today. Given both the radicalism of the majority party’s leadership and the ruthlessness with which it exercises its control of the Senate, Mr. Chafee’s personal environmentalism is nearly irrelevant when it comes to actual policy outcomes; the only thing that really matters for the issues the Sierra Club cares about is the “R” after his name.

Put it this way: If the Democrats gain only five rather than six Senate seats this November, Senator James Inhofe, who says that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” will remain in his current position as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And if that happens, the Sierra Club may well bear some of the responsibility.

We live, Mr. Krugman says, in “an age of one-letter politics, in which a politician’s partisan affiliation is almost always far more important than his or her personal beliefs.”

And those who refuse to recognize this reality end up being useful idiots for those, like President Bush, who have been consistently ruthless in their partisanship.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Add New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to the list of war supporters who no longer see any value in American troops staying in Iraq.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

This story raises serious questions about Israel’s methods, if not motives in Lebanon at this point:

HALAT, Lebanon, Aug. 4—Israel unleashed airstrikes across Lebanon Friday, severing the last major road link to the outside world and killing more than 30 people.

The bombs destroyed four bridges along the main north-south highway in what had been the largely untouched Christian heartland north of Beirut and far from Hezbollah territory. With the road from Beirut to Damascus already cut at several points, this was the only practical way to bring in relief and other supplies from Syria, tightening the sense of siege here.

What is so shocking is the apparent willingness to keep aid from streaming into Lebanon, as if by doing so Israel will be able to turn the Lebanese population against Hezbollah. This seems unlikely, though, as this quote from a Lebanese Christian in the Times story makes clear:

“Where are the Katyushas of the Hezbollah here?” asked Joseph Abihana, referring to a type of rocket that has been fired at Israel from the southern part of Lebanon. He said he was awakened by four bomb blasts. “We are used to being a safe area here, but now there is no safety. I blame the Israelis.”

The Israelis, not Hezbollah.

While many Lebanese Christians have long distrusted Hezbollah and other Muslims and Druse (there were, after all, 15 years of civil war along sectarian lines), and many criticized the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 that touched off the conflict, comments Friday indicated that the damage Israel has inflicted on Lebanon has shifted that equation.

“Public opinion is 100 percent against Israel from this area,” said Camille Chamoun, scion of one of the three major Christian families who mounted militias against the Muslim and Palestinian forces during the civil war and whose faction was aligned with Israel during its 1982 invasion.

“This is just an excuse to hit more of our infrastructure,” said Manal Azzi, a 26-year-old health worker who lives next to the destroyed bridge.

“I’m here speaking as a Christian,” she went on. “Israel is our main invader and has been for the last 50 years. Right now we’re getting more civilian casualties, so we’ll have another war in 10, 15 years.

“They talk about a new Middle East. To serve who? Israel and the United States. Israel is itself a terrorist state backed up by the United States.”

At the same time, we have Hezbollah continuing its attacks on Israel, in a circular escalation of violence that seems to have no end.

A ceasefire seems the best approach, with some sort of international force to keep the peace, but I’m not confident that we’ll be seeing something like that soon. I’m no expert — obviously — but hte rhetoric on both sides is so overheated that it would take tremendous diplomacy and leadership from the world’s lone superpower to get the two sides to the table. The Bush administration, however, has signaled its unwillingness to play this role, opting to take sides — and the violence continues.

To which one can only offer this, from Robi Damelin, whose son was killed in 2002 and is a member of “Parents Circle – Families Forum. Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian Families supporting Peace, Reconciliation and Tolerance”:

Can we not appeal to the world and say: Stop taking sides in the tournament. You are not helping, the Israelis will not disappear in a puff of smoke, nor will the Palestinians and indeed not the Lebanese. You are not helping anyone. Perhaps it is time for you all to support a dialogue toward a long-term process of reconciliation. Let us give up the green and blue and create a joint neutral color.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

South Brunswick has been on a spending spree over the last half dozen years, its budget growing by a total of $9.1 million since 2001 with a commensurate decrease in the size of its surplus. It has, as our editorial says this week, been spending its savings.

Some suggestions:

That’s why it is imperative that the council and the township manager find ways to save money now. First, the council should make it clear to the township manager, who under this form of government is responsible for formulating and executing the budget, that it will not approve next year’s spending plan if it includes a spending increase.

Second, Township Manager Matt Watkins should direct each department to keep its spending to no more than 90 percent of what has been budgeted. That would help regenerate the surplus while also setting a lower spending bar for next year’s budget.

Third, the council should begin a full review of township spending now, months before a budget will be needed. This would make it easier to sift through the various programs, to determine which qualify as “needs” and which as “wants,” allowing the council to better set spending priorities.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

This week’s Dispatches column on the need to streamline New Jersey government. Here are some other perspectives, from stories in the Monroe and Cranbury editions of The Cranbury Press.

And a response to the Monroe story:

Dear Editor,

Why does it not surprise me that everyone of the parties interviewed for the story on municipal consolidation in the August 4 edition of The Cranbury Press is opposed? They all have something to lose by consolidation — power and influence or money or both. They may claim to be looking after the interests of their communities, but I firmly believe that what we are hearing is self-interest.

A more important question may be, “Why did the reporter not interview people outside the power structure who would truly gain if staffs were reduced?” They are the people who will gain from consolidation. Who needs two police chiefs, two library directors, two library buildings, two mayors, two….(fill in the unnecessary duplicates of your choice)?

John Zoeller
Monroe

A fair question that I promise will be answered in future stories.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick