A very popular opinion

THE OPINIONS on Judge William B. Chandler III’s opinion are favorable. His decision in the Disney case, admired elsewhere on this page, is required reading -- and no skipping the boring parts, says the Financial Times: “Directors on both sides of the Atlantic should make it their duty to read all 174 pages.” The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, gushes that his decision “is a welcome contribution to our post-Enron corporate governance debate,” finding it “in keeping with a long tradition of courts deferring to directors’ decisions in the absence of gross negligence or malfeasance.”

Another of Michael Eisner’s hometown papers, the New York Times, devotes its lead editorial to the need for better Chinese-American relations. “By repeatedly demonizing China, Washington risks creating the hostility it fears,” the Times declaims. (Maybe Shanghai Disneyland, scheduled to open in 2012, will help.)

The Washington Post takes up the cause of Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, a four-star Army general who was “abruptly relieved of his command on Tuesday” for having an extramarital affair. The Post finds a troubling lesson: torturing civilians in Guantanamo Bay or Iraq is OK but “having an affair with a civilian ... is completely unacceptable and will end your career.”

And now for something completely different: The Boston Globe publishes a 900-word editorial against stealing from the library. “Library thefts are not victimless crimes or the stuff of eccentric anecdotes,” the editorial concludes. “They are attacks that should be defended against and prosecuted to protect the public’s intellectual wealth and well-being.”

Michael Newman