Editorials from around Ohio

By The Associated Press

Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers: The Columbus Dispatch, Oct. 10

As the newest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama has a task no other winner has faced: figuring out how to respond gracefully to an enormous honor given embarrassingly prematurely. ...

The adulation with which much of the world has greeted the new president has fueled those critics who paint him as vain and insubstantial. Now, he has to explain why he, who has spoken eloquently of international cooperation and hope for the future but has had little time to achieve any concrete improvements, has won the world's most prestigious accolade ahead of others who have toiled for years, risking their lives to bring peace, justice and freedom to the world's bleakest corners. ...

Millions of Americans share the Nobel committee's high hopes that Obama's collaborative approach to the world will repair the nation's international standing and lead to greater cooperation and improvement. But it's a work in progress -- barely.

The Nobel committee has used the prize to show political support -- or as some see it, as moral pressure to constrain or direct the president's exercise of U.S. power -- rather than to honor meaningful achievement. That can't help but undermine the credibility of the prize.

On the Net:

http://tinyurl.com/yj47u47

------ (Steubenville) Herald-Star, Oct. 7

While President Barack Obama deserves some degree of praise for saying he won't make a decision on the war in Afghanistan based on the mood of Congress, he must be clear on just what he is using to make his eventual decision. ...

Obama needs to find a direction here, be it set by the military, by the diplomats or, best, by some combination of both. There needs to be clear definition. If it requires defeat of the Taliban to be sure that al-Qaida doesn't enjoy a resurgence of its terror universities around Afghanistan, then the U.S. forces need to be able to show full commitment to that goal. If the issue is one of long-term nation building, then the U.S. effort must involve a need to convince allied governments to come aboard or stay aboard ...

The decision can't be one that plods along for weeks or months. Congress already is taking up the issue of a defense spending bill, meaning Obama has to come to terms with either siding with hawks or doves, and pushing Congress in the direction he needs.

This isn't a national policy. It's a world policy, a place where a strong presidential presence is needed to be displayed, especially when it involves war.

On the Net:

http://www.hsconnect.com/page/content.detail/id/526892.html?nav5005

------ The (Youngstown) Vindicator, Oct. 9

There is an adage that for every problem there is an answer that is quick, simple and wrong; recent events have shown that there can also be an answer that is complex, even convoluted, and equally wrong. We're talking about the recent announcement that residential customers of FirstEnergy Corp. ... would be receiving two compact fluorescent light bulbs from the company. The CFL "giveaway" was part of an effort to reduce electricity usage and encourage the more efficient use of energy. ...

Who could complain about that? Well, as it turns out, a lot of people -- so many, in fact, that Gov. Ted Strickland urged Alan R. Schriber, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, to ask FirstEnergy to suspend the plan, and late Thursday afternoon, the company said it would.

... Schriber said the PUCO had allowed FirstEnergy to implement its program, but did not give the company permission to charge customers an estimated 60 cents per month for three years. That $21 was meant to cover the cost of the bulbs and their distribution and compensate FirstEnergy for the electricity it wouldn't be able to sell because customers would be using less power.

... Ohio consumers arent inclined to be hoodwinked. They can do the math necessary to see that paying for a couple of light bulbs worth a few dollars on an installment plan that totals $21 over three years isnt a great deal. ...

On the Net:

http://tinyurl.com/ykaor2s

------ Dayton Daily News, Oct. 6

The purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America is a blur to most people. It was one of those gigantic things that happened all of a sudden last fall when the financial sky was falling. ...

Here was one pillar of Wall Street that wasn't either going bankrupt or living on the dole. BofA was coming off as the good guy. The government was eager for the deal to go through.

That was then. Things went wrong. Stockholders of Bank of America, who voted to approve the purchase, complained that they hadn't been told some crucial facts. ...

Recently, too, has come the news that Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray will be the lead lawyer in a case designed to get billions out of BofA. ...

The judge deemed Ohio the biggest player because two public pension systems are involved: public employees and teachers. ...

So many people were so badly hurt that there may be a tendency to demonize any executive who was involved. That has to be guarded against.

And yet the public pension systems have a responsibility to aggressively protect the interests of employees and retirees. They have to advocate for their people, and let a court decide.

The fact that so many others institutions are raising basically the same set of legal issues suggests that the Ohio systems are not stretching too far.

And at least they won't have to spend a lot of money on lawyers.

On the Net:

http://tinyurl.com/yhla7fy