That was quite a dogfight this week, with GOP senators John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham tussling with President Bush over how the U.S. can try and treat detainees in the war on terror. The senators, fortunately, won on some key points, such as preventing detainees from being convicted on the basis of evidence they can't see. The White House gained some wiggle room to define in domestic law what's permissible and what's not when it comes to roughing up, er, handling detainees. But all in all, the compromise kept alive the tradition of openness in our democracy that we would like others to emulate. The House now needs to get on board.

A great Texan and icon of traditional country music died this week. Don Walser, the guitar-picking Western swing virtuoso who won legions of young fans with his honey-rich tenor and heavenly yodeling, died at 72 after a long illness. Mr. Walser became a full-time musician after retiring from a National Guard career and was a mainstay at Austin's legendary Broken Spoke honky-tonk. Mr. Walser never abandoned his West Texas roots and was honored in Washington with a National Heritage Award in 2000.

After Mexico handed over a major drug lord to the United States for the first time last weekend, President Vicente Fox made a welcome announcement: "We will extradite all of those who have pending matters with U.S. justice." Extraditions are crucial in our international war against the drug trade. For too long, Mexican officials argued that suspected drug lords should face justice at home and balked at extraditing anyone facing the death penalty, which Mexico vehemently opposes.

For reasons we still don't understand, Congress has never applied the same focus to keeping terrorists out of our seaports that it has to keeping them out of our skies. Fortunately, though, the Senate passed legislation that would help at-risk ports secure themselves - particularly in detecting "dirty bombs" in containers. And Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison got money allocated to increase the number of federal agents screening goods at ports. The House has passed a similar bill, so we'd like to think Congress could iron this one out quickly and get it to the president's desk by the October recess.

So Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez wants international respect? Perhaps he could start by not using the United Nations for the most vile personal attack on another head of state that the international body has possibly ever witnessed. In referring to President Bush as "El Diablo" - the devil - and in all of his other despicable antics, Mr. Chávez revealed the sort of poor judgment that is likely to diminish his influence at the U.N. and - we hope - squash his bid to get Venezuela a seat on the Security Council.

Kinky Friedman may be a hoot and a holler, but his gubernatorial campaign might not survive his unguarded mouth. This week, the Internet was buzzing with a video clip of the entertainer from a cable interview last year. When asked what he'd do with sex offenders, the Kinkster quipped, "Throw them in prison and throw away the key and make them listen to a Negro talking to himself." Yes, Kinky's political incorrectness is a tonic at times, and we appreciate his disdain for condescending ethnic politicking ("tamales in the barrio, bagels with the Jews," as he once put it). But Kinky, who did not disavow the line, doesn't seem to get the line between political incorrectness and obnoxiousness. When will it stop?

For years, candidates for the U.S. House and the White House have filed campaign finance reports electronically. Senatorial candidates, however, insist on old-fashioned paper filings, a snail-mail approach that makes it exceedingly difficult for the public to decipher the source of special-interest money. We don't buy the argument that the Senate has a right to make its own rules when it is obvious that this foot-dragging is intended to keep the public in the dark for as long as possible.

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