UPDATE: Then there's the Salem Statesman Journal's take:
Loser: Kennewick Man, an ancient skeleton discovered near the Columbia River, won’t get the reverent burial that Northwest tribes hoped to provide. A federal judge ruled that the U.S. government should let scientists study the bones. The decision overrules a more thoughtful stand by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who tried to honor the tribes’ religious and legal claims.
"Thoughtful" in the sense of "biased and uninformed", that is. I'm all for honoring religious and legal claims, if "honoring" includes examining their validity, and the validity of any counter-claims. Babbitt's idea of "honoring" included misapplying the law and allowing the destruction of an important archeological site.
(Links to Kennewick Man posts.)
Perhaps the Times ought to fire the scipt writers and hire some reporters...
Posted by: Ranald Hay on September 09, 2002
Now here's something odd: the leftist response on Kennewick Man was that despite good questions as to the actual origin of the bones, and despite the fact that the Indians' claim was based on their religion, the bones should be restored to the Noble Red Men.
But, curious to say, when fundamentalist Christians want something and base it on their religion, acceding to their wishes would be a violation of church-state separation and an attack on basic American values.
I can't figure it out.
Posted by: Alex Bensky on September 14, 2002
Bill Clinton went to totalitarian lengths in the attempt to obliterate the truth about Kennewick man. He had the river bank, where the bones were found, paved over. This was done on the erroneous report that Kennewick Man was European, not Indian. Then that would bring up uncomfortable questions for the PC-world, that perhaps the Indians had committed genocide on the earlier white inhabitants. That would kind of put the kibosh on Indians as victims of evil, white Europeans.
Kennewick Man is actually a pre-modern human. His type was the only type of human before human beings split up into different races. Kennewick Man is an extremely important find and ought to be kept out of politics, but the totalitarian left can't keep anything out of politics.
Bottom line, Kennewick Man IS NOT Indian and ought not to be reburied in PC religious rites.
Posted by: Jabba the Tutt on September 17, 2002