An Editorial/Providence Journal, The Providence Journal

Rush Limbaugh can be an oaf, and often a hurtful and hypocritical one. While he has given conservative views more of an airing in the public forum than they might otherwise have received, it is doubtful he has much advanced civic discourse. (At least he admits his main role is that of "entertainer.")

Fox News conservative star Sean Hannity was in fine fettle the other night, roundly condemning the group ACORN for running what appeared to be a criminal enterprise while collecting our tax dollars. Fair enough. ACORN's actions have been outrageous.

The stench of fraud surrounding the community activism group ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has become so pungent that the Democratic-controlled Senate -- by a resounding 83-7 margin -- voted to strip the group of millions of dollars of funds in an appropriations bill.

U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died Tuesday at 77 and was the last of the storied Kennedy brothers, was a legislative giant. He served almost 47 years, making him the third-longest-serving senator, after South Carolina's Strom Thurmond and West Virginia's Robert Byrd.

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen splendidly in nominating as energy secretary Steven Chu, the nuclear physicist who runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Chu, who was the 1997 Nobel laureate in physics for his work in laser cooling of atoms, is also a fine administrator with expertise in the policy issues that he'd confront running the Energy Department.

Happily, a provision in the Great Bailout Law survived the Wall Street lobbyists and is letting the federal government buy equity in troubled banks to recapitalize them -- an approach that seems a lot better than buying banks' toxic assets. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will use at least $250 billion of this tool.