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Bill Keller in The New York Times on sexual predators on pedestals America has Jerry Sandusky and Britain has Jimmy Savile, a recently deceased BBC personality who preyed on young girls. Both engaged in charity work and had quirky personalities. "In both cases, the story is not just one of individual villainy but of the failure of a trusted institution, if not a flaw in the wider culture."
Jackson Diehl in The Washington Post on how Obama screwed up in Syria Obama's actions in Syria exemplify his weak foreign policy. He reversed Bush's policy in Syria by reaching out to Assad, a "willful disregard" of the lessons Bush learned. He tried for multilateral solutions for too long. "The result is not a painful but isolated setback, but an emerging strategic disaster."
Paul Krugman in The New York Times on the reality of health care costs The reality is that people die every year because they don't have health insurance, in spite of what Romney says. "A literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income."