FOR MILLER, TURKEY’S VALUE AS ALLY COMES FIRST
Barbara Barrett, Ryan Teague Beckwith and Rob Christensen, Staff Writers

News & Observer, NC
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Oct 15 2007

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller voted against the genocide resolution.

Miller is the only member of North Carolina’s congressional delegation
on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which voted last week to
declare the Ottoman-Turkish killings of Armenians in 1915, in which
as many as 1.5 million people died, a "genocide."

Sitting near three survivors of the event, all of them women in their
90s, Miller said he doesn’t think the U.S. has the international
standing to offend an important ally such as Turkey.

Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, told Dome he didn’t think the resolution
would accomplish much.

"I wish we had the standing in the world that if we pass that
resolution, Turkey would stop and examine the history of what happened
and decide whether they should do something to come to terms with
it," Miller said. "But the reality is, in Turkey and the Muslim world
generally, they will simply see the resolution as an insult and will
be angry about it."

After the committee’s vote, Turkey recalled its ambassador for
consultations.

"There is a genocide going on now in Darfur. We need the support
of Turkey and other Muslim countries to try to bring it to an end,"
Miller said.

In the days leading up to the vote, Miller spoke with the Turkish
ambassador and a deputy U.S. secretary of state. He also heard from
members of North Carolina’s Turkish-American community.

Miller said he thinks that Holocaust denial is morally repugnant,
that he was glad Congress apologized for the internment of
Japanese-Americans in World War II and that he voted for a resolution
encouraging Japan to apologize for its treatment of "comfort women"
in the same war.

Still, he said, it’s difficult to know which points in history deserve
modern action.

"Over the course of human history, there’s been remarkable evil,"
he said. "And trying to sort through it all, to acknowledge it all,
I think requires the wisdom of a theologian, not just a politician."

$100,000 into the coffers

State Sen. Janet Cowell says she raised close to $100,000 last week
for her campaign for state treasurer.

The fundraiser was held at the home of Susan and Perry Safran of
Raleigh. Among those attending were former Attorney General Rufus
Edmisten and Jim Goodmon, the chief executive of WRAL-TV.

Cowell is one of several people seeking the Democratic nomination
for treasurer.

The incumbent, Richard Moore, is running for governor.

Competing in a big world

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr warned last week that shifting demographics
could hurt North Carolina business.

At an executive breakfast in Raleigh on Friday, the Winston-Salem
Republican said North Carolina will need to build new roads and
schools and expand its colleges and universities to compete with
China and India.

He noted that California’s decision to cap the number of students in
state-run colleges helped North Carolina’s booming biotech industry
because startup companies couldn’t find the workforce there.

Speaking at the Breakfast Club of the Triangle meeting at the Brier
Creek Country Club, Burr said he didn’t have much to say about the
current political situation in Washington.

"I could sum it up in one word: Nothing," he said.

He said the level of "political divisiveness" is higher than he thought
it could ever be, and he referred to a series of Johnson Automotive
ads that the group watched in which a car salesman, played by a puppet
badger named Grady, harasses customers.

"Now is when you need to badger us," he said.

OVERHEARD

‘I have been to numerous NASCAR races, and the folks who attend
these events certainly do not pose any health hazard to congressional
staffers or anyone else.’

– U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes, a Concord Republican questioning a
recommendation that congressional aides get vaccinations before going
on a fact-finding trip to a NASCAR event in Concord