Horses deserve to be treated humanely

Visitors to Paris, say, can never be entirely sure they haven't just dined off a claimer they once watched trailing home at the Fair Grounds. No, that would be a slur on Johnny Crapaud. Your neighborhood estaminet is not supposed to serve horsemeat unbeknownst to its customers. The French do like horses, however, whether for riding, betting or eating purposes.

The last equine slaughterhouse in America closed after Congress banned USDA inspections of the meat for human consumption five years ago. President Barack Obama last month signed a bill rescinding the ban, but Sen. Mary Landrieu is leading the charge to reimpose it. She says she wants to stop, "once and for all," the "inhumane and controversial practice" of killing American horses for their meat.

That, of course, was the pretext for blocking the inspections in the first place. But it did not work. Horses have just been exported to Mexico or Canada and butchered there for Asian and European tables. Last year, according to the GAO, 138,000 American horses were killed for food.

As for "inhumane and controversial," Landrieu would need stronger words to describe Mexican methods. Horses are transported across the border in appalling conditions, moreover. Closing down the domestic abattoirs was no kindness.