Bush Sr. Secretary of State: Palin isn't ready for top job

State predicts strong election turnout

Health Center, city agree on land swap concept

A.P. poll: 1 in 7 voters still persuadable

Suspected U.S. missile kills up to 20 in Pakistan

General in Iraq says security pact may break down

An information alternative is gone

By PAUL JENKINS

I have always loved newspapers, believing they are the key to preserving our democratic republic. From Colonial times, when they were hastily tacked on trees and tavern walls in the night, they have shown the way. Not always the right way, mind you, but a way that at least could be debated. They would and should always be around, I thought, because they are needed, especially in tense and uncertain times such as these.

Jenkins

Not everybody feels that way about newspapers, but really, what’s not to love? Each has its own personality; its own cadence; its own soul. Some are spoiled children. Others stern grandfathers. Some are happy; others grimly gray and stodgy. Each day, despite economic woes nibbling at their bottom lines, they cajole, drag and push for what they think is right. They scream. They yell. They cry. The good ones separate the wheat from the chaff.

To me, newspapers always have been living entities with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies you would expect. Some are smart; others, not so much. There are very good ones and some that go out of their way to be bad. Just like people.

The treat has been that there were always so many of them to read on a dreary Sunday morning while attacking a key lime pie. That has changed. Too many published newspapers find themselves in dire financial straits and their numbers are diminishing. It is sad . . .

Last Letters

Stevens is a patriotic public servant

The list of what Ted Stevens has done for this state and its residents during his career as Senator is far too long to list, but seems so easily forgotten by some.  If you haven't lived here long enough to know all the good he's done, then maybe its time for you to do some research before casting him out as a convict.

Alaska's advancement would not be what it is today without him.  Nothing is ever perfect, but he's been our rock through all our ups and downs in the last 40 years and for his constituents to turn quicksand on him now when he, for the first time, needs our unwavering support the most, is inconceivable.

Between Begich's newly reported, unreported gifts and Stevens‚ who cares?  Have you recorded every single gift in your lifetime?

Who has the track record for putting Alaska and its residents first?  Who has held one of the most powerful positions in the U.S. Senate?  Who has the knowledge, expertise and experience to deal with the big government in Washington . . .

Simmering passenger revolt
means liberals won't rule forever

By TOM BRENNAN

The problem for 24-hour news channels is there just isn't 24 hours of news every day. There aren't that many significant things happening in the world, so the round-the-clock newsies give intensive coverage to stupid stuff.

Brennan

Take the jock-itch scandal that occupied hours of intense focus last week. The big story involved an openly gay lieutenant on the New York Police Department who was charged with lewd gestures by two male heterosexual sergeants.

The lieutenant said he was rubbing his crotch because he had jock itch, but he was found guilty of sexually harassing the sergeants for dealing with his problem in front of them. They felt he was being suggestive.

I watched the scandal unfold while waiting for breakfast at a pheasant hunting lodge in South Dakota. When the female anchor giving the news said she didn't know anything . . .

It's time to call it a day,
after 63 special years

By WILLIAM J. TOBIN

THIS IS THE LAST EDITION OF A weekly column that has appeared in The Anchorage Times and The Voice of The Times for 45 years. And Friday will mark the close of a 63-year career in journalism that began in Indianapolis in 1945 and continued in Associated Press assignments there, in New York, in Louisville, in Juneau, in Baltimore, and in Helena, Mont. After almost 18 years with the AP, the last move along this journalistic trail was back to Alaska on a permanent basis joining the Times in April 1963. And now it ends. Call it retirement. Or maybe it's better to call it a moment whose time has come.

Tobin

OVER THOSE YEARS it has been my privilege to serve with a host of talented men and women. I have covered as a reporter some of the biggest national stories of the day. As a bureau chief and as an editor I have directed the coverage of major events that made headlines the world over. Outside the newsroom, I have had the opportunity to serve on dozens of community boards and agencies, and worked with wonderful volunteers in hopes of making Anchorage a better place to live and work.

ALONG THE WAY, MY WIFE, Marge, and I have watched a territory become a state, a town become a city. We have helped guide three great sons into manhood, and welcomed daughters-in-law and grandchildren into the family. They are more important . . .

Good old Joe lifts the curtain

By WESLEY PRUDEN

The end of the campaign is finally in sight, and fear stalks the land once more.

Pruden

Hillary Clinton has been in Minnesota, campaigning for Al Franken and averting her eyes when he brings out his pornography collection, and sounding the alarm that the vast right-wing media conspiracy is back at work. Evil never takes a holiday.

Hillary sees conspirators hiding behind every pumpkin, as the spooks, haints and goblins newly arrived from the nether world descend upon us for their usual Halloween stalking duty.

The carpenters, plasterers and plumbers working on the set for Barack Obama's victory-night party are afraid, too. Can they get it finished in time for the official laying on of hands?

The Obama campaign considered retrieving the Temple of Zeus from storage in Denver, but thought it not grand enough . . .

Affordable health care

By WALTER E. WILLIAMS

One of the campaign themes this election cycle is "affordable" health care. Shouldn't we ask ourselves whether we want the politicians who brought us the "affordable" housing, that created the current financial debacle, to now deliver us affordable health care? Shouldn't we also ask how things turned out in countries where there is socialized medicine?

Williams

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute's annual publication, "Waiting Your Turn," reports that Canada's median waiting times from a patient's referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist, depending on the procedure, averages from five to 40 weeks. The wait for diagnostics, such as MRI or CT, ranges between four and 28 weeks.

According to Michael Tanner's "The Grass Is Not Always Greener," in Cato Institute's Policy Analysis (March 18, 2008), the Mayo Clinic treats more than 7,000 foreign patients a year, the Cleveland Clinic 5,000, Johns Hopkins Hospital treats 6,000, and one out of three Canadian physicians send a patient to the U.S. for treatment each year. If socialized medicine is so great, why do Canadian physicians send patients to the U.S. and the Canadian government spends over $1 billion . . .

McCain still the right choice for commander-in-chief

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

WASHINGTON — Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.

Krauthammer

I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe — neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) — yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.

McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad . . .

Palin was unaware of Gazprom's visit to Alaska

By PAUL JENKINS

Is it just me, or is it disconcerting that Gov. Sarah Palin was left in the dark when the entire senior management of Gazprom waltzed into Anchorage to meet with an oil company executive and the state? They wanted to talk about their company and investing in energy projects here, perhaps even the proposed gas line from the North Slope to points south — and nobody told Palin?

Jenkins

How can that be?

Gazprom is not Uncle Bob’s Gas Co. and Hubcap Shoppe. It is beyond huge. It is Russia’s largest company and a market force. In fact, it’s the largest natural gas extraction company on the planet, accounting for more than 90 percent of Russian gas production. It controls something like 16 percent of the world’s gas reserves.

Imagine: Gazprom’s senior management — and several pals of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin — show up in the governor’s conference room in the Atwood Building in downtown Anchorage for a chat with Deparment of Natural Resources officials and Jim Mulva, ConocoPhillips’ top executive.

Nobody wonders, “Hey, should we tell the boss? After all, she’s spending a lot of time slapping around the Russians, especially Putin, and the media is nosy and all that.” Instead, the lovely and fashionably dressed Sarah P. is left campaigning . . .

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