Here's what newspapers around the nation are saying:
Chicago Tribune
UNHAPPY SHOOTER: Until more is known about Francisco Martin Duran, any discussion about what drove him to open fire on the White House . . . will be essentially speculation. But it is hard to avoid suspicion the overheated rhetoric of this autumn of our political discontent had something to do with it. We are in a political mean season, and there are always people who have trouble understanding vicious words don't necessarily call for vicious deeds. . . . An assortment of security measures . . . have been deployed in recent years to thwart security threats (that have) increased incrementally the distance between the president and the people. It would be unseemly to let Francisco Duran add even more to that distance.
The Washington Post
RISING ECONOMY: It's a happy moment in the life of the American economy. The statisticians have just confirmed what most people sensed, that the expansion was strong and steady throughout the summer. Business investment is climbing. The growth in jobs has been remarkable.
A substantial part of the responsibility for the present healthy state of the economy is shared . . . by two familiar Washington figures - one a Republican, the other a Democrat.
The Republican, Alan Greenspan, presides over the Federal Reserve Board, which has been steering monetary policy with notable skill and foresight. (The other) crucial contribution came from the Democrat, President Clinton, (who) pushed through a reluctant Congress a serious and convincing cut in the budget deficit.
It seems to show, not to our surprise, that the economy works a lot better when the deficit is heading downward and the government shows a firm intention to keep inflation under control.
The New York Times
POLITICAL HYPROCRISY: "This is not a case of cheap labor," Arianna Huffington told reporters. "This is a case of a family falling in love with another human being . . ." Huffington is, of course, the wife of California's Republican Senate candidate, Michael Huffington, who has made getting tough with illegal aliens his battle cry. The human being referred to is the family's former nanny - herself an illegal alien.
Seldom do politics offer up such sweet moments. The unmasking of monumental hypocrisy is always a wonderful present to the public, and Huffington's exposure for employing an illegal alien while making his name as an alien-alarmist deserves some kind of award in the annals of campaign duplicity.
Voters can now see that the cruel ideas behind his rhetoric flitted so lightly through Huffington's brain that he could not apply them to his own household.
The Christian Science Monitor
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Legal and domestic-violence experts across the country are doing a slow burn over the case of Kenneth Peacock of Baltimore, sentenced to a mere 18 months for voluntary homicide in the death of his wife, Sandra.
Peacock, a truck driver who came home unexpectedly and found his wife with another man, had pleaded guilty.
What has outraged people was not only the lightness of the sentence Baltimore County Circuit Judge Robert Cahill handed down, but his evident reluctance to impose any sentence at all . . .
Over the years, the law has traditionally recognized adultery as a provocation to murder. (But) the law evolves, and attitudes change. . . . The public outcry has been a consciousness-raising experience for judges across the county.