The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo., Oct. 22

Who will be the big winners in this year’s elections? More and more it appears that lawyers with political clients will claim the greatest victories, no matter who wins the ballot tallies.

As stories in this newspaper and others around the country have made evident, battalions of attorneys are massing in key battleground states, ready to file postelection lawsuits similar to those filed in Florida in 2000.

They will claim all manner of balloting problems from hanging chads to high-tech hijinks on behalf of their losing clients, whether they be presidential contenders or those seeking more modest political offices. …

While that may be great news for the legions of lawyers involved in such cases, it will not ultimately benefit the American republic. It can do nothing but increase voter cynicism and ultimately contribute to the feeling that elections are an insiders’ game where winners and losers will be determined in courtrooms long after the ballots are cast.

A new, dangerous Internet era


The Denver Post, Oct. 22

It was in desperation that Bob Hickey listed himself on a commercial Web site four months ago seeking a kidney donor and, probably unintentionally, propelling himself into the medical textbooks. We commend a dying man’s ingenuity. But the unprecedented matchup between Hickey and a stranger from Tennessee quite possibly ushers in a new era in organ donations that raises a host of legal and ethical concerns.

… It marked the first time an organ transplant was brokered by a commercial Internet company. It also launched the nation down a new path of organ donations that at once raises new ethical questions and at the same time gives hope probably false hope to the 85,000 Americans currently awaiting organ transplants. …

And what about the risks? We would not want to see Hickey’s case spur people in need of a quick buck to sell an organ without considering the long-term consequences. “We don’t want people jeopardizing their health to benefit financially,” said Nikki Wheeler, spokeswoman for the alliance. “In this case, now you have a person who will have potentially bad health long-term.”

The biggest problem Wheeler foresees is that sick people could become easy prey for Internet brokers. “They’ll do whatever they can to save their lives,” she said. “We don’t want them taken advantage of.”

Neither do we.

Regulate a rogue industry


The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, Oct. 23

Congress had a golden opportunity to improve Americans’ health, cut health-care costs and throw a lasso around a rogue industry.

But that opportunity was flicked out the window when a House-Senate conference committee working on a corporate-tax bill jettisoned a provision to allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the tobacco industry.

Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine, a Republican, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., had crafted a bipartisan bill that had the support of myriad health groups and even tobacco company Philip Morris.

DeWine promises to be back next year with the same bill and a new strategy. But, he says, FDA regulation won’t happen until the public demands it.

Apparently, Americans haven’t been clear enough. So, listen up, lawmakers. Here’s the scoop, in simple terms so that even those lawmakers who are particularly obtuse can understand: Tobacco products kill. Regulation is needed. ASAP.

Winner faces real problems


The Irish Times, Dublin, Oct. 26

It has been said with justice that this U.S. presidential election is a world election in which the world has no vote. Rarely if ever has a presidential election in the U.S. attracted so much international attention, based on the assumed worldwide consequences of a Bush or Kerry victory.

… The balance of international opinion decisively favors a Kerry victory and especially so in Europe.

In evaluating the international effects of the election, these facts about a deeply polarized United States and a polarized world must be taken fully into account. But so must the possibility that either man would in fact pursue a convergent and surprisingly similar agenda. If Mr. Bush wins he would feel more free in a second term to repair international relations hurt by the Iraq war and less constrained by his conservative base. If Mr. Kerry is victorious he would apply his more multilateral approach to the same objectives, especially over Iraq. Neither man would be in a hurry to repeat that exercise in unilateral preemptive intervention. They would both have to grapple with declining U.S. influence abroad and the weakening performance of the American economy arising from trade and budgetary deficits.