Political Culture

TOM DELAY HAS BEEN so intellectually dishonest for so long that news that he may have been criminally dishonest hardly comes as a surprise. The question now is how much worse the political culture will become before it can get better. DeLay's indictment on a single count of conspiracy to violate state election laws has drawn predictable reactions from Democrats and his fellow Republicans.

Your editorial "Repression in Jordan" (May 3), branding Jordan as a "repressive society" simply because its government decided to withdraw the press credentials of the NBC correspondent in Amman, is totally unwarranted. The measure was an isolated action, the first of its kind taken by the Jordanian authorities against a foreign correspondent--and decided upon only after several incidents had left them with no other choice. To convey, without valid reason, such a negative image of Jordan to your readers is a most regrettable distortion of reality.

Interest in this year's Los Angeles mayoral campaign is underwhelming. The turnout for Tuesday's election is expected to descend to new lows. Editorial writers and good-government types scold us for our civic apathy. But their anxiety and hand-wringing are misplaced. Our stubborn indifference to the mayoral campaign is far from worrisome. Rather, it is a sign that the City of Angels in 2005 is in relatively good form.

During his recent talks in the Kremlin with Secretary of State James A. Baker III, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev indulged, as usual, in a rambling monologue about the internal situation in the Soviet Union. The purpose of this monologue, I suspect, was not so much to enlighten Baker as to impress him with a questionable intellectualism. For example, Gorbachev spoke about a "moral political directive"--in other words, defining political events in a moral framework.

Seymour Martin Lipset, a leading scholar of democracy and one of the most influential social scientists of the last half-century, died Dec. 31 at a hospital in Arlington, Va., of complications from a stroke. He was 84. Lipset explained the connection between economic development and democracy, an insight that earned him immediate attention.

Kevin Starr knows firsthand what it was like to live in California in an "Age of Abundance," the subtitle of the latest book in his multivolume series on the history of the state. Growing up in San Francisco in that era "was the definitive time my point of view came together," Starr said. "It was also the time of extraordinary development for California and so, consequently, I participated in that growth and that optimism."

As Easter becomes a memory, religious news typically fades from the columns of America's newspapers. But this year may be different, because of New York Cardinal John O'Connor's highly publicized complaints that the secular media are biased against Catholicism. His charges of "Catholic-bashing" raise anew the recurrent tension between a nation of believers and a political culture that increasingly relegates religious perspectives to the far corners of the public square.

Colin Powell's decision not to seek the presidency in 1996 removed one potential candidate from the race, but it left unaffected the hopeful expectation that prompted many Americans to consider him their choice. To these voters, Powell was attractive for reasons that went well beyond the calm leadership he exhibited when, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he oversaw the U.S.-led coalition's defeat of Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Scenario No. 1 --After months and months of delay, the space shuttle Discovery is finally given the go-ahead for launch on, say, Oct. 1. There is another tragic accident. Or else the mission is aborted shortly after takeoff because of some mechanical failure and we all suffer a nerve-wracking return to base. Scenario No. 2 --The shuttle makes a faultless takeoff, enjoys a successful mission and lands a few days before the presidential election.

In a sweeping indictment of the political culture that surrounds him, President Clinton on Thursday decried a "toxic atmosphere of cynicism" that he said once hardened his own heart and has left many politicians and journalists "in a deep hole" of self-righteousness and hypocrisy. "We're in a world of hurt. We need help. We are in the breach. We are in the hole here," Clinton said during a national prayer breakfast at the Washington Hilton Hotel.