Plow through this post if you want to read 1) a provocative op-ed that we declined to run in the print edition, 2) my explanation of why we didn't run it and 3) the author's response to that explanation.

The author is Robert Crawford, professor of interdisciplinary arts and sciences at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

At last week’s Republic convention, we heard claims that a McCain-Palin administration would mean a break with the past. Why, then, would Sarah Palin repeat one of the most consistent Bush-Cheney mantras – a “Whatever it takes!” bravado which, when wedded to a politics of fear, helped Republicans exploit the 9/11 tragedy for political advantage and a narrow ideological agenda that brought us the Iraq war.

Here is Palin’s enthusiastically received convention remark: “Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America . . . and [Obama] is worried that someone won’t read them their rights?”

Palin’s ploy is a not-so-hidden challenge to the rule of law in the War on Terrorism. Since 9/11, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have done everything in their power to the law in detaining and interrogating “enemy combatants.”

The evidence that the government has approved torture and the outsourcing of torture to other countries is now overwhelming and under different political circumstances would certainly be grounds for impeachment or criminal prosecution.

Secret meetings, secret law-making, administration denials, a willed determination to undermine every Congressional and Court effort to return the government to the rule of law – this is the legacy of the last seven years.

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An alert reader (see John Sherman's comment here) has pointed out that Tacoma isn't the only jurisdiction experiencing a marked drop in traffic fatalities. According to preliminary data posted on the Washington Traffic Safety Commission site, Washington state had a 20 percent reduction in vehicle occupant deaths during the first half of 2008.

Sherman called the data to our attention for an editorial about the City of Tacoma's red-light cameras. Police are hoping the cameras reduce traffic accidents, and numbers from the first year of operation seem to indicate they do. After three years of no change, the city's serious collisions have dropped nearly 50 percent this year. Fatal accidents have declined a third.

I asked Lt. Pete Cribbin at Tacoma PD if the statewide trend refutes the argument that red-light cameras are behind the city's lower accident count. The short answer: He's not sure. The long one: He doesn't think so. Cribbin says more drivers may be opting to stay home rather than pay high gas prices, but those decisions don't appear to be making a dent in Tacoma's traffic.

Cribbin said urban drivers get behind the wheel out of necessity more than choice. "The trips where people are going to work or going to school – those are the kind of accidents that we investigate. And those are the kind of trips that aren't optional."

I have a call into the city's public works department to ask whether traffic counts on city arterials have remained constant even as gas prices have shot through the roof. I'll let you know what I find out.

We hate to point out the obvious, but the City of Tacoma’s street-repair program wouldn’t have been hit by the recent asphalt shortage if it had been keeping its streets in repair all along.

We agree with the Kansas City Star:

Both John McCain and Barack Obama need to be more specific about their priorities in trying to reduce the country’s dependence on imported energy and boost production of renewable fuels. Both could do a better job of laying out the choices that would have to be made, especially in handing out tax breaks and subsidies.

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