6/21/00 5:05 p.m.
The Kids Are Alright
And better in Texas than in Tennesse.

By NR's Ramesh Ponnuru & John J. Miller

ore campaign spokesman Douglas Hattaway complained a few months ago that Texas is "one of the worst places to raise a child." Well, it's not as bad as Tennessee, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which released its annual "Kids Count" report on Tuesday. In it, the foundation ranks states on their rates of infant mortality, teen birth, high-school dropout, illegitimacy, poverty, and other indicators. This year, Texas came in 37th and Tennessee 45th.

There's plenty of good news in the study (which uses 1997 data), and not just for Texas. Nationwide, infant mortality rates have dropped 22 percent since 1990, child death rates have fallen 17 percent, the teen birth rate has declined 14 percent, and teen deaths by accident, homicide, and suicide are off 18 percent.

The best place to raise a kid, according to the Casey Foundation's rankings, is Minnesota. (That's probably because they don't take weather into account.) Rounding out the top five are New Hampshire, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Louisiana is last.

Bill Clinton, Racial Healer
The president was in Texas on Monday to raise funds for a liberal Hispanic group. He started out by talking about hate crimes. Then he repeated his accusation that Republican senators were blocking qualified female, black, and Hispanic judicial nominees out of prejudice: "Several eminently qualified minority nominees have become casualties of a highly politicized confirmation process." He cited about the nomination of Enrique Moreno, which is opposed by Texas senators Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison. "I could give you lots of other examples," Clinton continued. "First African-American ever to serve on the Missouri supreme court was defeated in the Senate by a blatantly partisan misrepresentation of his record. And, you know, we can't have this kind of thing in our country."

It's hard to know which possibility is more damning: that Clinton actually believes Republicans are opposing his nominees on racial or sexual grounds, or that he knows better and is willing to make the incendiary charge anyway. In any case, voting against a liberal nominee appears to be Clinton's working definition of a hate crime.

Clinton also said, "And I think we're actually quite fortunate in this millenial election, because we don't have to engage in a kind of personal, negative histrionics."

Back to the '70s
Gore press flack Chris Lehane insinuated an explanation of high gas prices: "Profits for oil companies are up 500 percent in the first quarter this year. . . . It really raises questions of what is going on with the big oil companies" (courtesy of Hotline).

So there you have it: Prices are up because a few companies suddenly decided they'd like to make more money.