THE PATRIOTISM OF DISSENT
Mary McGrory, Washington Post
July 4, 1991A reader from Gaithersburg writes: "To be a patriot in my view, you have to have at least one time in your life actually supported your country in its actions without reservation or desire for political advantage."
He wasn't, as it happened, talking about me, but he might as well have been. The last military action I supported without reservation was World War II.
"Without at least one documented case of unequivocal support of their country . . . no one has the right to call...
JOBLESS RATE HITS 7%, BUT FIGURES POINT TO RECOVERY
NATIONWIDE LEVEL FOR JUNE IS HIGHEST IN FIVE YEARS
John M. Berry, Washington Post
July 6, 1991The nation's unemployment rate edged up to 7 percent in June, the highest rate in nearly five years, the Labor department reported yesterday. Despite the small rise, the overall employment report gave another clear signal that the U.S. economy is on the road to recovery
The department reported that the average American worker last month put in more hours on the job than in May and fewer job seekers were forced to work part time.
STATES LOCKED IN IMPASSES OVER BUDGETS
LEGISLATORS GRAPPLE TO MAKE ENDS MEET
John E. Yang, Washington Post
July 6, 1991Nearly a dozen states from Maine to California ended the first work week of their fiscal year yesterday without final action on new spending plans as lawmakers squabbled over spending cuts and tax increases in the face of the most difficult state budget problems in nearly a decade
The fiscal turmoil in state capitals mirrors the budget fight that embroiled Washington last year and reflects not only the recession but the increasing state costs for education, prisons and health care....
SEWAGE PROBLEMS SURFACE IN BAGHDAD
IRAQIS FIND THEMSELVES ANKLE- DEEP IN AN UNPLEASANT POSTWAR MESS
Caryle Murphy, Washington Post Foreign Service
July 6, 1991In one of Baghdad's poorest neighborhoods, the street called One-Eyed Woman is ankle-deep in a pool of sewage. And Adnan Jabero says that for now, there's not much he can do to fix the overflow.
Jabero, who got his doctorate in environmental engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has one of the most difficult jobs in Baghdad: keeping its water system working. And as if he didn't have enough problems, "They gave me sewage a few days ago," he...
TAKING STOCK OF THE DEFICIT
Washington Post Editorial
July 5, 1991DESPITE THE budget deal between President Bush and Congress, this year's deficit is going to be enormous, and next year's will probably be even larger. And yet, paradoxically, the deal is proving effective and still promises to push the deficit down sharply in the mid-1990s -- if the political system has the stamina to stick with it that long
Last winter the budget seemed to be headed toward a tremendous deficit of more than $300 billion, compared with $220 billion the year before.
GOP REIGN HAS GENERATION OF DEMOCRATS ON OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
Dana Priest, Washington Post
July 5, 1991A generation of men and women who grew up thinking they would run the country has been forced to think again.
After a decade of Republican rule in the White House, President Bush is scoring high in the polls, and there is no strong Democratic challenger in sight for 1992. It could be at least six years before a Democratic administration is a possibility.
Not since the two decades before 1953, when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower broke the Democrats' hold on the presidency, have so...
DOW UP 52 FOR BIGGEST GAIN IN 10 WEEKS
Washington Post News Services
July 2, 1991Stocks scored their biggest gain in more than 10 weeks today, spurred by the latest signs that the U.S. economy is on the mend and a surprise cut in Japanese interest rates.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 51.66 points, or 1.8 percent, to close at 2958.41. It was the biggest rise since April 16, when the 30-stock index rose 53.71.
In the broader market, gaining issues swamped losers on active New York Stock Exchange volume of 166.9 million shares...
HANDS ON WALLETS
Washington Post Editorial
July 5, 1991
THE AREA economy seems to be breaking out of its 13-month doldrums, but the recession hasn't yet loosened its grip on everybody. For bankers and builders saddled with backlogs of unsold houses and vast amounts of empty commercial space, the turnabout is something still only to be dreamed about. The same holds true for 3,600 public employees who lost their jobs between March and April. For them, as well as for other local and state government workers expected to follow ...
U.S. REFUSES TO SHIFT NUCLEAR ARMS IN SOUTH KOREA
PLAN HAD BEEN PROPOSED AS PART OF DEAL TO BRING NORTH KOREAN PROGRAM UNDER CONTROLDon Oberdorfer, Washington Post
July 3, 1991The United States informed South Korea yesterday that it will not adjust deployment of nuclear weapons in that country as part of any deal to bring the budding North Korean nuclear program under control, according to official sources
Secretary of State James A. Baker III made the U.S. views known in a meeting with officials accompanying President Roh Tae Woo in the first full-fledged state visit by a South Korean leader in a quarter century.
WORTH A TRADE WAR WITH EUROPE
Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, Inc.
July 3, 1991
The commercial-aircraft market is one of the last still dominated by U.S. companies. About 85 percent of the world's 9,800 airline jets (excluding those in the Soviet Union) were made in America, mostly by Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. In 1990 the U.S. trade surplus in aircraft and parts totaled about $23 billion. If someone said the U.S. industry faces a foreign predator -- backed by huge government subsidies -- you'd probably suspect the Japanese. And you'd be wrong....
D.C. LEAVES 3,400 TEENS OUT OF WORK
PINCHED BY RECESSION, FIRMS FALL SHORT IN MEETING DIXON CALL FOR JOBS
Rene Sanchez, Washington Post
July 3, 1991The District's summer job program, reeling from Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon's budget cuts, began this week without work for about 3,400 teenagers who had sought it.
City officials said yesterday that although dozens of businesses have answered Dixon's plea to hire youths, the supply of jobs has fallen far short of the demand.
Nearly 11,800 teenagers registered with the city for the six-week, minimum-wage jobs, which for the first time were not guaranteed by the D.C. ...
EMERGING BUSINESS CONFIDENCE IS ENCOURAGING SIGN
Rudolph A. Pyatt Jr., Washington Post
July 4, 1991New statistics showing the local economy is beginning to recover from the recession are encouraging yet intriguing. Sluggish spending patterns, for example, raise some interesting questions about the role of consumer confidence in sparking a recovery
National surveys show most consumers are more upbeat now about a recovery....
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE CLOSES IN ON BUDGET DEFICIT
WILSON THREATENS VETO OF ENTIRE $56.4 BILLION MEASURE IF TAX INCREASE IS REJECTED
Lou Cannon, Washington Post
July 4, 1991Under prodding from Gov. Pete Wilson (R), a legislative conference committee tonight approved a new tax package that would take the final steps in closing a $14.3 billion budget deficit, largest in the history of any state
The Senate approved the package late tonight, but the bill's fate in the Assembly remained uncertain.
With a midnight deadline approaching, Wilson called legislative leaders into a closed-door session to work on a deal intended to solve California's fiscal...
POOR PEOPLE IN RICH AMERICA
Hobart Rowen, Washington Post
July 4, 1991"I need my job, I want my job back -- I'm the only one in my family who has a job," moaned a distraught nurse's aide at a New York City hospital, one of 6,300 municipal employees fired over last weekend. As she wept, the painful scene was recorded on national TV
My sense of pride is marred on this Day of Independence, as we pledge allegiance to the flag and reflect on the nation's accomplishments. There is much to be thankful for, and I join with other Americans in...
INDEXES SHOW HOPEFUL SIGNS FOR LOCAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Anne Swardson, Washington Post
July 2, 1991The Washington economy is beginning to recover from its recession, according to statistics released yesterday.
Two sets of figures for the month of April prepared by the Greater Washington Research Center registered their most hopeful performance since they were created last fall, although the numbers also included some disturbing ambiguities.
An index designed to predict future economic activity rose in April for the fifth straight month. And an index summarizing the current performance...
BUSH'S STEALTH ATTACK
SURPRISE MEDALS FOR GULF WAR ARCHITECTS
Laura Blumenfeld, Washington Post
July 4, 1991The Persian Gulf War may be over, but President Bush is still launching surprise maneuvers, this time on his closest aides.
The leading civilian architects of the gulf war, national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney and Secretary of State James Baker, said they were shocked yesterday morning when Bush called them to the podium in the White House East Room to receive the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award...
MIXED FEELINGS ARE VOICED BY RIGHTS LEADERS
UNCERTAINTY EXPRESSED ABOUT THOMAS'S VIEWS
Lynne Duke, Washington Post
July 2, 1991Several black and Hispanic civil rights leaders expressed pleasure yesterday at President Bush's nomination of a minority jurist to the Supreme Court, but they said that -- unlike retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall -- Clarence Thomas appears to be no friend of the issues the rights community holds dear.
Noting that Thomas, 43, is black and grew up poor and disadvantaged in the South, John Jacob, president of the National Urban League, said, "I'm hoping that anyone sitting in...
DEMOCRATS GET CHANCE TO TURN HEALTH-CARE ANXIETY INTO VOTES
E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post
July 1, 1991Democrats, who are notorious for having trouble agreeing on anything, are remarkably united on the proposition that the health-care issue is a gift from the heavens.
It is one area of American life where government's role is generally popular. Almost no one believes that the free market on its own will solve the problem.
And dissatisfaction is intense: Polls show that among citizens of industrialized nations, Americans are among the least satisfied with their health-care...
Posted by MB at July 5, 2003 11:51 AM | TrackBack
That seems to me a prtty stupid definition of patiotism, in the abstract, but say a Russian living from 1917 to 1990 could also have supported the war against Hitler unequivocally, to name one. And if you expand government actions beyond wars, you've got plenty of wiggle room. Enough perhaps to make that comment once again as crass as it sounds. It does tend to imply that people go round disapproving of everything their country does for a lifetime (call it the Coulter thesis). The Soviet example doesn't help that case. By the time a definition gets as meaningless as that, it's time to throw it in the trash because it's starting to smell.
Posted by: John Isbell at July 5, 2003 10:43 PMMB,
It is frankly eerie to see these headlines here. So many of the same indicators, yet I think these times are even more frightening. Papa Bush agreed that deficits were bad and very courageously supported a tax increase (with Leon Panetta, my congressman at the time). This Bush would never, ever let reality interfer with ideology. And I don't think we would have ever heard Papa Bush say that God was doing his work through him (and thus authorized the war). Papa was not that insane nor huberistic. And Papa didn't leave us in a tarpit for decades and decades.
Billmon had a perfect turn of the phrase for this phenomenon today:
Like father, like son is one thing. Like father, but worse, is another.
Posted by: Mary at July 6, 2003 01:49 AMI think Mary McGrory realizes that, John, as does MB. Your turn on the definition works well: I believe we all think it is pretty useless. The only person who could possibly fit the bill is an unblinking authoritarian or a total apathetic.
Posted by: Joel at July 7, 2003 02:15 AM