- Incest and Corruption, Texas Style by Gene Lyons, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
- Enron-Gate by Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate
- Left Behind by Jacob Weisberg, Slate
- Burning Down The House by Joe Brancatelli, The Brancatelli Files
- Is It In Bush's Political Interest To Prolong The War? by Mickey Kaus, Kausfiles
Of the above articles, I would most like to direct your attention to Joe Brancatelli's, which well articulates a belief I've had for some time. It is that our nation's airlines are, with the token exception, managed about as badly as humanly possible. A year or three ago, another reporter covering the airline beat said to me, "If you picked anyone at random off the street and installed them as the CEO of American Airlines, they could not do a much worse job."
The amazing thing is that you have airlines that are flying at 90+% capacity and charging fees that most passengers feel are exorbitant…and these companies still are not turning a decent profit. The government bailouts that were arranged after 9/11 were needed before the planes hit the World Trade Center. And a point Joe doesn't make in his excellent article is this: There are people out there still arguing that we should trust the same geniuses who run the airlines to arrange for proper security on their flights. Yeah, sure, that makes sense.