Spotlight on Burns-Tester race

If there's one thing for certain to conclude from Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to the Flathead this week, it is this: The Montana Senate race is big and important.

Incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns is viewed as being one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country seeking re-election. The national GOP knows this, so it is going to throw everything it can at this race, including Cheney, and who knows, maybe President George W. Bush.

Cheney sounded an obvious theme for the Burns campaign and other GOP candidates across the country - that Democrats can't be trusted with national security issues.

The vice president pointed to Ned Lamont's victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary race as a symbol of a weak, defeatist Democratic Party. Lamont's opposition to the war in Iraq attracted support from bloggers and others well outside the Connecticut political scene to an extent that the state race was nationalized.

Montana's voters may need to prepare for a similar blitz here, as supporters of both Burns and his Democratic opponent, Jon Tester, fight a national battle on our statewide battlefield.

Griz fans were stunned this week to hear that UM running back Lex Hilliard will be out for the season.

Hilliard, a former Flathead Braves star and current standout for the Grizzly football team, tore his Achilles tendon Monday afternoon in practice.

The injury wipes out what had been a promising season for Hilliard. He was closing in on the UM career rushing record and was touted as one of the preseason favorites for the Walter Payton Award for Division I-AA's top player nationwide.

Now all that will have to wait another year. Hilliard, a senior, will redshirt this season and should be able to return to the backfield for the 2007 season.

We're sorry to hear about Lex's injury but look forward to a rapid recovery and the chance to see No. 38 running for the Griz next year.

The news of an arrest in the death of JonBenet Ramsey 10 years ago is certainly welcome, but it should be remembered that John Mark Karr is not the first suspect in the case, and he may not be the last.

Karr was arrested in Thailand on Wednesday and has publicly confessed to involvement in the death, which he called "accidental."

But there are many questions that still need to be answered, and Karr's ex-wife says he wasn't even in Colorado at the time JonBenet was murdered.

The district attorney and JonBenet's father, himself once a suspect, have both cautioned the public not to jump to conclusions and to let investigators do their jobs. That is good advice.

So despite the unending tabloid TV fascination with the case, we urge everyone not to get caught up in the rush to judgment. Let's find out the facts first. If we are lucky, a killer will be convicted, but let's not convict him before his case goes to court.