Dear Readers,

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 16, 2004

Byline: Paul M. Rodriguez, INSIGHT

Dear Readers,

Sometimes, as was the case today before coming to work to finish this conversation with you, we take the time to observe something that has nothing to do with the hustle and bustle of a typical morning trying to get our son ready for school and all of us out the door on time. There, out in the snow beyond the kitchen window, a rare little drama played out that stopped us cold. A small brown hawk with a beautiful set of tawny chest feathers was on a knoll beyond the weeping-willow cherry tree patiently waiting for its morning catch of dove to stop struggling in the grasp of his talons until he was ready for the hunter's breakfast. While my son and wife hustled to the car I remained for a few minutes with spyglass and camera, appreciating the hawk's beauty and nature's complete lack of sentimentality.

What brings me to share this natural and homely event is the understanding, gradually attained as I get older, that nothing happens in a vacuum. There is a cycle of things going on around us far greater than what we perceive in schedules filled with appointments, traffic jams, and all that goes with the routine of daily life. There's much more going on than we realize, and now and again it helps to stop for a moment to see the life-and-death struggle just beyond the window that we may have overlooked. This helps, in some ethereal way that words rarely express, to put things into perspective.

Since we're in the news business, of course, our job is exactly that: to put down on paper what we've learned not just about things that speedily pass us by but so too the things our sensory skills absorb when we slow down, stop and survey a scene. The mix of stories your team has assembled inside these pages is a good example to illustrate my point.

Consider the cover story by John Berlau on federal contractors and how noisy Democrats and "gotcha" journalists, to identify but a few of the local critters, often go after stories without pausing to examine the facts. Berlau has noted that the Halliburton Co. has been getting a lot of attention over its contracts in Iraq, most of it hinting of a conspiracy by ol' Dick Cheney and pals. What John learned because he took pains and time to dig up the full story helps to put it all into perspective. Without sentimentality.

Kenneth R. Timmerman and J. Michael Waller also provide in-depth reports that remind us of how important it is for the press to revisit stories and put news into context. Why is the government spending our tax dollars to stymie victims' families from accessing frozen funds of terrorist states that killed their loved ones? And why is our government willing to support communists in Iraq? If we haven't learned that the enemy of our enemy isn't always our friend, then we don't know the lessons of the Cold War.

Kelly Patricia O'Meara, Scott L. Wheeler and Timothy W. Maier also bring perspective to stories that affect you and your kids directly. Whether it's powerful psychotropic drugs, eye-in-the-sky wizardry or home-computer privacy, there are issues your government isn't publicizing that we think you should know about - and about which Congress needs to be alerted.

We also think it's helpful to appreciate America's greatness. Stephen Goode has brought to our attention an important new book of essays, though none written by conservatives, that speak to the values, ingenuity and spirit of this country and her people. Knowing something intellectually is a far cry from knowing something in your heart. Unless we stop now and again to smell the fragrance of the rose, we may forget its beauty. That would be a mistake. Just like it would have been if I hadn't stopped to watch my son studying that hawk through a frosted window on a busy morning.

We'll be roving Capitol Hill regularly now to observe some other creatures and report back what we find. From Washington, God bless.