Online-only letters
Iran irradiated
Farce majeure Editor, The Times:
Regarding “U.S. will not allow Iran to have nukes, Cheney says” [Times, News, Oct. 22]: Will we stand silently as the administration launches another ill-conceived, preemptive war?
Are we fooled when our pandering politicians try to be hawkish for the right while preaching diplomacy for the left? The drums of war are beating louder.
Our generals seem more interested in preserving their stars than speaking truth to power. Will we insist that our leaders not take us on another ill-conceived, ally-alienating adventure?
- Larry Donohue, SeattleWar crescendo
There is a crescendo in the voices calling for a military strike against Iran. Vice President Dick Cheney has threatened “serious consequences” and President Bush has raised the specter of World War III because Iran is enriching plutonium and might develop nuclear weapons in the future.
While there are many reasons not to begin another unilateral war, there is one reason that should be crystal clear to everyone: Iran would immediately retaliate against our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the risks of an attack on Iran “… could be very, very high” because our ground forces in Iraq are “not broken, but they are breakable.”
Many thousands of troops in Iraq would be at risk with supply lines that run through Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, bases within reach of mortar attacks and our soldiers working closely with Iraqi police and military.
The Bush administration is ratcheting up the rhetoric while leaving our troops in jeopardy. And this is all because of weapons Iran is years away from developing.
If you support our troops, you must call for calm and diplomacy in dealing with Iran.
- Pat Dowden, SeattleDemocracy diversions
The Clinton legacy
The name Hillary is derived from a Latin word meaning cheerful, happy.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is happy when she gets what she wants. Clinton is like most of us, but she did not garner a victory in a recent debate. I hope this will set the tone for the remainder of her bid for presidency.
During a recent Democratic presidential debate, Clinton did not play hardball but played dodge ball. For one of the “smartest women in the world,” she was caught in more than one contradiction. You would expect her to be more studied at remembering what she said to whom and when she said it.
It is no longer funny to watch Clinton because her issues with truth make her unfit to lead our country. Does some of this sound familiar?
There are just too many moments. Remember when it was the Republicans who fabricated infidelity issues regarding former President Bill Clinton’s lifestyle? Remember when Clinton fabricated a story that her daughter was in danger on Sept. 11, only to find that she was nowhere in the vicinity, but far away watching TV?
My favorite was watching both Clintons at the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan. Bill and Hill were distracted - not in the moment and not into each other. What a contrast to the healthy loyalty Ronald and Nancy Reagan shared. You never felt like the Reagans were posing the way Bill and Hill do.
It will take more than a village to get Hillary back to the White House.
- Pam Schmoll, WoodinvilleUnfair and unbalanced
I’m still waiting for the Democracy Papers to deliver fact-based opinions that support The Times’ assertion that traditional media ownership matters; in fact, that it’s constitutionally mandated.
Rather than defending existing ownership models, The Times fills its pages with mostly left-wing extremists’ bluster attacking opinion, diversity and competition. If The Times’ support for the existing monopoly is right, why don’t all Seattle’s lefties shed their small-market Apples for world-consensus Microsoft? Or drive big manly pick-up trucks rather than girly hybrid cars? Duh!
Rather than inform, The Times selects Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting activism coordinator Peter Hart, a far-left hatemonger, to explain why FOX News is icky and why a new FOX Business Channel is neither needed nor desirable [”A Fox in the penthouse: Murdoch-style business news,” guest column, Nov. 1].
Earth to Hart and The Times: In America, the people decide which products and services they support. As with the size of government, the Constitution says that God grants the people - not former Vice President Al Gore or Peter Hart or The Times or the usual Washington, D.C., power-grabbing suspects - the right to choose what they want and need.
Seems to me that the current media-ownership model is protected because without it, the mostly destructive progressive programs and ideals would soon end. Every reasonable poll tells us that the people are far to the right of the media and the progressive do-as-I-say oppressions. And that is why we see and read constant hysterical and sometimes psychotic attacks at FOX and President Bush, and Judeo-Christian values.
Does The Times really believe private business is bad and big government is the solution to all? Oops, Europe and Asia tried that. That’s why today they are running to move their economies toward the FOX “fair-and-balanced,” competition and diversity model.
- Alfred Petermann, BellevueHear no evil
Regarding “This sordid mess started when Robert Bork got trashed” [Jonah Goldberg syndicated column, Oct. 29]: To contend that Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., is the source of today’s mean-spirited political climate is akin to blaming a sneeze for the fence blowing down. It’s a ludicrous claim, unsupported by Goldberg’s examples or logic.
His claim, however, is typical of the right wing’s propensity for projecting its sins onto liberals.
As an alternative theory, I would like to offer a few right-wing examples, starting with Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy, whose communist witch hunts [in the 1950s] destroyed many lives. Conservatives have always needed enemies. When communism failed, liberals became conservatives’ new target.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich advised conservatives to frame Democrats’ policies and beliefs in the vilest of terms, to exaggerate and mischaracterize. Remember the scorched-earth approach to campaigning as defined by former President Ronald Reagan’s strategist Lee Atwater and President Bush’s former political adviser Karl Rove?
Remember the Swiftboaters, who stood not for truth, but for demonizing former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry? How about the pundits and radio commentators who show contempt for anyone who thinks Social Security and unemployment insurance might be good things?
This group includes conservative radio-show host Rush Limbaugh, conservative columnist and TV commentator Michelle Malkin, conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter, talk-show hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, FOX News show host Bill O’Reilly, talk radio-show hosts Michael Savage, Melanie Morgan and Lars Larson, et al. They are great at vilifying. That they do it so successfully speaks volumes.
How do we expect the Sunni and Shia in Iraq to settle their differences, if here at home we can’t even get conservatives to speak with decency about liberals?
- Walter Wilson, EverettCardinal sin
A fine mess
Regarding “I know it’s uncool, but here’s why I’m pro-life” [syndicated column, Oct. 22]: Women will get abortions, legal or not, so keep it safe? To continue with this ever-so-wise line of reasoning: “Murder will occur anyway, so we may as well make it legal.” Or how about, “Rapists will continue to rape, so let’s pass out condoms to them to keep it safe, but we might as well make it legal to rape because they’ll just do it anyway.”
Anyone else see how utterly foolish this kind of reasoning is? You cannot make abortion “safe,” it is impossible. The child still dies. Therefore, fatality occurs in nearly 100 percent of abortion cases - though some few have survived the attempt on their lives. This does not even begin to take into account the potential psychological harm to the mother.
“Safe abortion” is the mother of all oxymorons.
- Glen Howard, North BendShattered dreams
Planet America
So The Times has joined the crowd that looks no further than immediate benefits while not considering long-term results [”Dream deferred, Congress to blame,” editorial, Oct. 31].
Stop crying about young people not being responsible for their illegal [immigrant] status. Their parents are to blame, not the American people.
If these kids are as good as The Times thinks, their parents should be told they should return to their native country and enroll their kids in colleges and universities there. They and their offspring would then be in a better position to help their own country and the millions of people there.
- Barbara McEwan, Forest, Va.Slap in the face
“Immigrant activist tough to discourage” [News, Oct. 28] states: ” ‘We have to try. The worst battle is the one not waged,’ said Sandigo, a single mother of two who runs the nonprofit immigrant-advocacy group American Fraternity and owns two small businesses.”
The United States of America is the only country in the world that taxes its citizens to take care of foreign lawbreakers who violate its borders and just about every law in the country.
So far, folks like Nora Sandigo have been getting away with cajoling the pandering and corrupt politicians into passing bills in their favor without American citizens being aware of them.
Guess what, Ms. Sandigo? The party is over! The American people have awakened to the fact that they have been playing the patsy to corrupt politicians and invaders of their country.
Those of us who came to the U.S. legally, by respecting the laws of the country, consider illegal immigration a slap in the face. Moreover, illegal immigration is an insult to Hispanic, law-abiding U.S. citizens.
I predict Ms. Sandigo will no longer succeed, and if she’s an illegal, she’ll end up deported.
- Haydee Pavia, Laguna Woods, Calif.Black-letter law
A classic example of a lie repeated often enough that it becomes accepted as truth: The U.S. Constitution states all children born in the U.S. are automatically citizens.
Fact: The qualifier “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes children born to foreign diplomats residing in the U.S. and to foreigners traveling in the U.S. on a tourist visa.
Everyone should be able to understand that if children of legal visitors to the U.S. born here are not automatically citizens, it does not take a rocket scientist to determine children born here to illegal visitors cannot possibly be constitutionally-protected citizens.
- Nick Schultz, Lake Forest Park