This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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This editorial will appear in Monday's paper.
This year’s race for Pierce County assessor-treasurer lends itself well to the county’s new ranked choice ballot.
Voters don’t want for choices in the six-way contest. And any partisan considerations that may discourage ranking in other county races don’t apply to the newly nonpartisan assessor-treasurer position.
The News Tribune editorial board sees one clear front-runner in the race and two other candidates who would be up to the task. We’ll discuss them in the order we suggest voters rank them.
First choice: Terry Lee
Lee, elected to the Pierce County Council in 2002 and its current chairman, has a reputation as a principled consensus builder, a voice of reason and an accessible elected official.
It is a measure of the trust and respect Lee engenders among colleagues that he often ends up chairing the boards he joins. His chairmanship of the Pierce County Planning Commission spanned seven years – years in which the commission developed the county’s comprehensive land use plan and several community plans.
Lee, a former construction project manager, has considerable private sector experience managing large staffs and budgets. That makes him a good fit for the assessor-treasurer’s office. So does his work on the Pierce County Council to create a county ombudsman who helps property owners sort through their assessments and his ideas for fine-tuning tax collections.
TNT business columnist Dan Voelpel seems to assign a major share of the blame for today's financial meltdown to the Clinton administration, judging from his column today.
That's a far too simplistic view of the factors behind America's greatest financial crisis since the Depression.
It is true that Congressional Democrats and perhaps the Clinton White House spurred Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac to help make home ownership more available to low-income Americans who, almost by definition, were poor credit risks.
The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and other conservative critics have repeatedly blamed much of the subprime mortgage crisis on the actions of the two mortgage finance giants, explicitly fingering Democrats for causing today's mess.
For a factual rebuttal, see this excellent McClatchy Newspapers analysis that appeared in the TNT's print edition today. Bottom line:
Federal housing data reveal that the charges aren't true, and the private sector, not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring subprime lending at the core of the crisis.
In retirement, I've had time to absorb the daily coverage and commentary on the crisis from both The New York Times and the Journal as well as other news sources.
What strikes me is how seldom the conservative camp acknowledges that simple greed -- or at best a heedless pursuit of greater profit, unchecked by adequate regulation -- got us into this mess.
