Editorial

A group of military-targeted trade publications is calling on President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing a lack of support from military leaders over the Iraq war. "The time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth," said an editorial appearing in the Nov. 13 issues of Gannett Co.'s weekly Military Times newspapers, which include the Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times. "Donald Rumsfeld must go." Iraq has become a political liability for Bush's Republican Party as violence there has increased in recent months.

An Anne Arundel County jury yesterday ordered the Annapolis Capital to pay $2.5 million to a political candidate who said a 1997 editorial in the newspaper caused his law practice to shrivel and humiliated him. Attorneys said the award is the largest they could recall against a Maryland newspaper. It is one of the biggest in an Anne Arundel County civil trial. The verdict ended a weeklong trial that pitted Annapolis lawyer John R. Greiber, 56, against the daily newspaper, which has a circulation of about 50,000 in and around Maryland's capital city.

In a highly unusual action, the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association is publishing today incomplete results from a prematurely aborted drug trial, along with a scathing editorial blasting the drug's manufacturer for halting the trial. The huge trial enrolled 16,602 patients in 15 countries in a five-year effort to determine if the anti-hypertension drug verapamil is better than cheaper diuretics and other drugs. But Pharmacia Corp., which manufactures verapamil under the trade name Covera, ended the study two years early, before researchers could determine whether the drug provided any possible benefit.

DANIEL BERGER After stints on newspapers in Cleveland, Indianapolis and New York, Dan Berger came to Baltimore in 1967. He served as chief of The Sun's London bureau from 1969 to 1972, after which he returned to take up his first love of writing editorials and commentary. As one of the senior members of the editorial board, he specializes in foreign affairs, although he also writes on cultural and educational matters. In the coming year, he expects to explore the ever-expanding role of philanthropic foundations in the city and state.

Opening the door on a topic the Vatican has said is closed for discussion, the Archdiocese of Boston's newspaper published an editorial yesterday raising questions about the Roman Catholic Church policy requiring celibacy of its priests. The editorial appeared in The Pilot, the nation's oldest Catholic newspaper, in a special edition dealing with the clergy sexual abuse scandal that has racked the Boston church and led to a wave of revelations across the country of past cases of priests molesting minors.

If he were at work, Walt Handelsman would be exploring ways to illustrate a tricky story: the Supreme Court's decision that Paula Corbin Jones can file a sexual misconduct lawsuit against President Clinton.But the Baltimore-born Handelsman, editorial cartoonist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, instead is in New York City, where today he receives the Pulitzer Prize for his visual commentary on a palette of state and national issues.Handelsman's itching to try his hand at the court ruling, but he's also reveling in a few days off with his wife, Jodie.

Your August 28 editorial, "A summer job in every pot," was as predictable as it was disappointing. The Baltimore Sun believes the goals of the BUILD agenda are "laudable" just unrealistic in the current economy. In a rather condescending tone, the editorial chides both the candidates and the people who elect them for the audacity of believing that these laudable goals are achievable in the current economic situation. It's what we've come to expect in Baltimore - resignation and cynicism cast as realism.

When I read The Sun's editorial summing up George W. Bush's presidency as "lousy," I couldn't help but wonder how the editorial board will assess President Barack Obama's service to our country ("Misoverestimating Bush," April 28). To date, Mr. Obama's presidency has been marred by scandal after scandal, broken promises, and profligate spending resulting in the largest deficit this country has ever seen. Let's hope The Sun can be as honest about Mr. Obama's legacy as they think they were about Mr. Bush's.

Our journalism world made news itself the other day when National Public Radio fired one of its longtime stars, Juan Williams, ostensibly for expressing a personal opinion on Fox News not to the liking of NPR managers. In saying he gets "worried" and "nervous" when he sees a fellow passenger on a plane dressed "in Muslim garb," Mr. Williams, an NPR statement declared, was "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR. " Never mind that he said later on the same Fox show that it was wrong to finger all Muslims as "extremists.

It's that time of year when we give thanks for the former colleague who had the bright idea to forgo the heartfelt, mostly predictable appreciation of family and fortunes on this uniquely American holiday and instead reflect on the writing of the Thanksgiving editorial, no easy task. To our colleague's great chagrin, an earlier editorialist — also struggling, no doubt — had the very same idea on how best to serve up the holiday editorial. This year, we continue the tradition, reprinting a version of that piece with a few tweaks and lots of nods to Baltimore Sun editorial writers past and present.