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 Sunday's print edition.
Cleaning up someone else’s mess is never pretty, but President Obama did a respectable job last week wading through the previous administration’s torturous muck without getting mired in it.
By releasing Bush-era memos approving brutal CIA interrogation techniques, Obama disavowed in no uncertain terms the legal theories that proved the justification for what amounted to, in some cases, torture.
To be sure, the president had already outlawed harsh interrogation techniques. But providing nearly unfettered public access to the documents that helped author what Obama called a “dark and painful chapter in our history” went a step further. It was official acknowledgment of common knowledge – an assurance that when history is written, there will be no doubt of the lengths to which the United States went to wage its war on terror.
It's ironic that the USS Bainbridge, the Navy destroyer involved in the rescue of ship captain Richard Phillips, was named after a naval officer who fought pirates 200 years ago.
Oh, and William Bainbridge also has a Puget Sound island named after him.
Here's an article about Bainbridge from the Los Angeles Times.
By Jerry Hirsch
Los Angeles Times
Earlier this week, sharpshooters on the fantail of the Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge picked off three pirates with single bullets to the head, freeing a hostage merchant marine captain. Two days later, the Bainbridge sailed to the aid of another American merchant ship attacked by pirates.
William Bainbridge, the naval officer for whom the ship is named, would be pleased. Bainbridge played an important role cleaning out a similar nest of corsairs who plagued shipping off African coastlines two centuries ago.
