The Opinion Blog

'The Good Outnumber You'

Wednesday’s editorial, on the horror in Boston:

Confronted with insanity such as Monday’s bombing of the Boston Marathon, our immediate reaction tends to be an initial gut-punching shock followed by a flood of questions. Who would do this? How many people are hurt? Are the people I know safe? Is the danger over now? What went wrong? Was this domestic or international? Sophisticated or amateur? Planned or spur of the moment? And, above all others: Why?

More Publicity Than Public Concern

 

AP photo

Is there any purpose left to Lindsey Graham’s continued and now-obstructive alarm calls about Benghazi other than energizing his base and raising his profile ahead of next year’s election? We don’t think so:

 

Dead horse, meet S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Clearly, a number of things went horribly wrong at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in a pair of terrorist attacks on U.S. compounds.

Nullify the Nullification Talk

Sunday’s editorial takes on the tried and true topic of nullification. Remember that from your high school history textbooks?

South Carolina has a proud tradition of obstinacy. In the federal family, we’re the child who automatically responds to every suggestion with an emphatic “nuh-uh” or “make me.” Ingrained over centuries, stubborn refusal has become our gut feeling, our knee-jerk reaction. The federal government says po-tay-to and we say po-tah-to. Of course, if the feds at any point changed course and started saying po-tah-to, we’d immediately insist that real Americans say po-tay-to.

This disdain for and distrust of authority has led us into confrontations of all sizes, from bloody wars to congressmen who publicly call the president a liar during a State of the Union address. The recent calls by state legislators for reviving nullification only adds to this long tradition of digging in our heels.

Congratulations, Tim and Tom; Now Let's Get a Plan

Tuesday’s editorial has some appreciation for the words of our newest congressman and urges those leaders in D.C. to get a national gameplan in place and then follow through on it.

There’s nothing like starting your job smack dab in the middle of a crisis. New U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, R-Myrtle Beach, and new U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-North Charleston, took their oaths on Thursday as the nation they seek to help lead struggles through a particularly nasty patch of partisan bickering and stonewalling.

Governing has taken a back seat to mud-slinging and shouting. Rather than work together to improve the United States, Congress has settled for lurching from crisis to crisis, barely averting each fresh disaster just days or hours before it happens. What a reality to encounter on your first day on the job.

It's Time to Talk Guns

Thursday’s editorial wades into the national debate on gun control in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, offering what we hope are some common sense thoughts on the hot-button issue:

Let’s get one thing straight, right off the bat. Nobody’s seriously talking about getting rid of all of the nation’s guns, at least nobody who’s spent more than a scintilla of time looking at the issue of gun violence in our country.

The horrific, senseless violence visited last week upon the innocent children of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., defies easy answers. Yet confronted with tragedy such as this, two questions naturally follow: Why did it happen, and how to we keep it from happening again?

We'll Stick With the Union

Thursday’s editorial weighs in on those silly secession petitions. Fairly surreal that this is even coming up:

Seriously? 150 years after the Civil War some people are still threatening to secede because they don’t like who the president is? It’s a good thing that Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is hitting theaters this Friday. A reminder of what it cost us the last time must be overdue.

If you haven’t already heard about this new effort via email or social media, let us fill you in. A number of online petitions sprang up after the election, asking the president to allow South Carolina to leave the union and form its own sovereign state. By Thursday, one petition had already gathered more than 20,000 signatures. And South Carolina is just a small part. The movement has already attracted similar petitions from all 50 states and more than 675,000 signatures.

Congratulations; Now Get to Work

So much for the campaign. Now it’s time to actually get some work done, as Thursday’s editorial says:

The ballots are in, the votes have been counted (and in Carolina Forest they’re being recounted), the victory and concession speeches have been given, and residents and politicians alike are breathing sighs of relief as we return to our normal lives after yet another divisive political season. But if you’re one of those elected, now comes the hard part.

Without Great Choice for President, It's Obama

Sunday’s editorial offers the editorial board’s thoughts on the presidential election:

Few things about this presidential election have lent themselves to unambiguous, clear decisions, despite what the campaigns and their diehard supporters might like us to believe. Neither of the major candidates is a miraculous savior or unmitigated fiend. Both stand before U.S. voters with significant high and low points, and nobody has managed to leap to the fore as the obviously better choice.

For proof, you need look no further than the latest polling data. We give our fellow Americans credit for being fairly smart and invested in the future of this nation, and as such, if the decision on picking our next leader were an easy one, we wouldn’t be coming down to the wire with two candidates that are still neck and neck.

Why We Recommend

Why do we even bother to share our thoughts on the upcoming election? Sunday’s editorial attempts to explain:

Over the coming week, The Sun News editorial board will be sharing our analyses, and our recommendations, of the candidates running for local, state and federal offices in the Nov. 6 election.

We do not call these pieces “endorsements;” nor do we think of them as such. An endorsement, in our view, is an exhortation that you vote for a particular candidate, and that’s not what we’re doing.

We simply want you to have as much information about these races as possible as you go to the polls. In these pieces, we will describe our impressions and critiques of these candidates in a way that the journalists who write in our news pages will not. (Rest assured, as always, that the two functions of newsgathering and opinion writing are separate at The Sun News.)

The Most Important Editorial in Years

Thursday’s editorial suggests we all take a deep breath and tone down the fever-pitched rhetoric that’s been flying ahead of November’s election.

How about a quick game? We looked back in our archives and the archives of other newspapers. The quotes by voters below were printed before the presidential elections of 1876, 1896, 1916, 1932, 1980, 1996, 2000 and 2008. Can you match them to the year they came from? (Answers at the bottom of the editorial)

1. “This is the most important election of the last 50 years or 50 years to come.”

2. “This is the most important election in at least half a century.”