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Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Friday, February 14, 2014
Corinth, Miss.
Letter to the editor
Cochran comes through again on Farm Bill To the Editor: It goes without saying that people are cynical about government and are tired of programs that don’t work. People are tired of elected officials with a lack of experience making policy when they don’t know the difference, for example, between a Remington 1100 and a Government 1040. Mississippi, and our great nation, recently saw the benefits of a U.S. Senator with a vast amount of experience who is often referred to as a “voice of reason” in the U.S. Senate. He has earned something that is, quite frankly, rare, in Congress. It is called respect. I am referring to Thad Cochran. He has earned that by listening more than talking, recognizing the needs of others, being reasonable, being honest, being fair, making his points clearly and relating them to others. He is genuine, passionate about whom he represents and cares more about what is right than popular. He is a brilliant individual who has done a great job surrounding himself with a staff consisting of the same. The Farm Bill, which he was one of the primary architects, was signed by the President this past Friday. Cochran led the way so the bill received strong bipartisan support and cut billions of dollars from conservation and forestry spending along the way and still resulted in the best conservation and forest policy our Nation has ever had – and I have worked on farm bills for 22 years. Many people don’t realize that the Farm Bill is our nation’s largest investment in voluntary conservation. While it is obvious that this investment results in healthier lands and waters, it also means we will have better rural economies and communities. Our nation is fortunate to have the fine service of Thad Cochran. His fingerprints in making government do a better job of serving the people in the most cost-effective manner were easily seen in this bill. But his job in doing so was still a very difficult one. Due to the need to reduce spending, tough decisions had to be made. Many years ago, Senator Cochran said of his late administrative assistant, Wiley Carter, “...he reminded all of us that one of our highest priorities was to help solve the problems of the people of our State and to treat everyone who called on us with respect and courtesy.” This philosophy guides Senator Cochran and his staff. When I had the opportunity of a lifetime to serve on his staff, I don’t remember listening to a constituent about a bad program. Although I am no longer on his staff, I am constantly called about asking the Senator to support some funding increase for some important program. In someone’s eyes all programs are important to some people. But our country, and our Senator, can’t fund all of them. He has a detailed understanding of the federal budget, from defense to agriculture to commerce to education, and he understands the balances necessary in spending. His vast experience is so important. Senator Cochran is to be commended for his superb work on the 2014 Farm Bill. He worked together with all of those involved, listened to people about what worked and what didn’t work, cut spending and ended up with better policy. That took skill. Our nation has a lot of tough decisions to make. All elected officials should follow the model that Senator Cochran used on this bill. If they do, our great State and Nation will be the better for it. James L. Cummins
Prayer for today Loving Father, may I not fall to nodding in the balmy air of luxury and miss the messages of love. Arouse me, that I may give and take in the treasures of love as they come my way, and that they may not pass unnoticed. Amen.
A verse to share “But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.” -- Numbers 32:23
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Senate campaign to compare ‘grassroots,’ ‘astroturf’ politics While watching what is shaping up to be a bitter and bloody U.S. Senate campaign in Mississippi, it’s important that state voters not lose sight of the fact that in the name of “grassroots” politics they are going to bear witness to a lot of folks selling “astroturf.” In politics, “astroturfing” is to true “grassroots” politics what “astroturf” is to real grass. It’s fake grass with fake roots. As noted in prior columns on the subject, the current U.S. Senate campaign in Mississippi is the target of “astroturf” groups and super PACs (political action committees) on an unprecedented scale. State voters have already seen the handiwork of such highsounding groups as Club for Growth, Senate Conservatives Fund and FreedomWorks – groups that funnel whopping sums of PAC money into attack ads against primarily incumbent Republicans. In Mississippi, these outside groups have doubleddown on state Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville, in his bid to “primary” incum-
bent Mississippi GOP U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran. Why? Because CoSid Salter chran has committed Columnist the unpardonable sin of thinking for himself and not allowing his every vote to be dictated by libertarian talking heads and because Cochran read the part of the Constitution that balanced the power of the U.S. president to direct spending with that of Congress to do the same thing. Why? Because Cochran refuses to engage in the politics of the temper tantrum with votes to “shut down the government” every few months when policy negotiations get tough. Why? Because Cochran used his vast influence to bring $29 billion in hurricane relief to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina? In what has become cookie-cutter campaigns, these “astroturf” groups have gone after veteran Republican members of Congress
not with the idea of winning general elections, but with the idea of winning Republican primaries. Veteran Indiana GOP Sen. Richard Lugar was a victim of these groups and they succeeded in helping Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock unseat him in the 2012 primary. Then, Indiana Republicans watched the slowmotion train wreck that became Mourdock’s general election race against Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly, who was elected when Mourdock self-destructed in part because longtime Indiana Republicans were disgusted by the tactics of the “astroturf” groups in demonizing Lugar in the Republican primary. One interesting development in Mississippi is the fact that supporters of Cochran among Mississippi’s Republican rank-and-file decided not to take the outof-state “astroturf” group attacks lying down. They formed their own “Mississippi Conservatives” super PAC to turn some of the same harsh tactics being heaped on Cochran by the
out-of-state groups on McDaniel. Call it homegrown “astroturf.” It’s unfortunate that Republican primaries have degenerated into battles over ideological purity fought in great measure on premises that are totally false. But there is one group out there that just loves the current crop of Republican internecine feuds – it’s a group called Democrats. Even in Mississippi – where Democrats are one healthy Attorney General Jim Hood away from being totally skunked in trying to win statewide office – they take heart at the fact that the Mississippi Republican U.S. Senate primary is shaping up to be one that is fought to a scorched earth conclusion. In Indiana, it’s unlikely in the extreme that Democrat Joe Donnelly alone could ever have unseated the GOP from the stranglehold they had on Lugar’s old seat – that it, of course, without the direct assistance of the Indiana GOP. Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.
Putin’s Sochi Olympics little more than a vanity project If there were an Olympic competition for gross expression of authoritarian egotism, Russian President Vladimir Putin would win the gold medal going away. His Sochi Olympics are a vanity project joined to the blundering power of the Russian state. Only a leader drunk on his own power would insist on transforming a tiny subtropical resort town (average February temperature: high 40s) into the site of the Winter Olympics, and only an unaccountable political system would let him get away with it. It is the misfortune of Russia to have both. Let the games begin. The scale of the construction involved has been gargantuan. And so has the corruption. When Russia won the games in 2007, it said it would spend $12 billion on them; it only underestimated by roughly a factor of five. Russian expert Leon Aron of the American Enterprise Institute notes that the 28 miles of highway and railway linking Sochi to the nearby mountains has cost more than $8 billion, enough to pave the roadway with mink furs. The building spree was in the tradition of Peter the Great’s creation of the new capital of St. Petersburg out
Reece Terry
Mark Boehler
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editor editor@dailycorinthian.com
Willie Walker
Roger Delgado
circulation manager circdirector@dailycorinthian.com
press foreman
of nothing in the 18th century, or Josef Stalin’s forced industrialization in Rich the early Lowry 20th. In other words, National developReview ment by diktat. The rapid construction spawned the shoddy work that went viral on Twitter as #SochiProblems: Brackish drinking water (although that’s the norm for too many Russians). Missing manhole covers. A bathroom door that locked a bobsledder inside. It is about what you would expect if a strongman ruling by whim demanded just-intime delivery of a new city from graft-addled construction companies ruthlessly exploiting migrant labor. For Putin, any cost, and any means, was worth it. Like the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, these games are priceless political propaganda. By securing them, Putin also bought the tacit cooperation of the global media, which might scoff at the glitches and tsk-tsk at his regime’s anti-gay discrimination, but at the end of the day will always
“oooh” and “aaah” at the spectacle of it all and accentuate the positive. The opening ceremonies inevitably delivered a potted, whitewashed version of Russian history (anything approaching accuracy would be too dark and disturbing). NBC Sports gently played along. A narrator for the network called the Revolution of 1917 “one of modern history’s pivotal experiments,” a euphemism that makes the ascension to absolute power of a grim, murderous ideology sound as innocuous as Thomas Edison fiddling with prototype light bulbs in Menlo Park. When during the ceremony a little girl let go of a red balloon to symbolize the end of communism, Meredith Vieira said it represented “the end of the 20th century dream” and called it “a bittersweet moment.” After all these decades, communism is still the totalitarianism with the best PR. Gazing over the spectacular pageantry was the all-powerful maestro of the games. Evidently, no detail was too small. One of the bearers of the Olympic torch during the opening ceremonies was Alina Kabaeva, a rhythmic gymnast who once won an Olympic
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gold medal but whose real accomplishment is being romantically linked to Putin. That was enough to earn her a place of honor among a select few of Russia’s top athletes, including tennis star Maria Sharapova. Assuming no terrorist attack or other catastrophe, the games will suit Putin’s purposes nicely. He needs triumphs on the world stage to distract the Russian public from the country’s oligarchic government, its meltdown in public health and its economic dysfunction. International legitimacy and prestige aid the cause of his misrule, and the International Olympic Committee is happy to provide them by the bucketful. It is appearances that matter most in these Potemkin games. When one of the five Olympic rings failed to materialize during the opening ceremonies, Russian TV viewers saw a doctored version with all five rings immaculately displayed. Vladimir Putin willed it, and it was so. It is good to be czar. (Daily Corinthian columnist Rich Lowry can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com)
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