A new low for Charles Reichley
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Edwin E. Powell
Published: July 8, 2008
Seldom do I agree with Potomac News columnist Charles Reichley, but I found his column “Questioning patriotism” (Potomac News, July 3) particularly shallow and partisan.
I agree with him that it is wrong to challenge a candidate’s patriotism for political and partisan purposes. It is equally wrong to make unsubstantiated, slanderous charges against a candidate. His claim
that “Obama, as president, would seriously damage this country” without further evidence to support that claim is clearly a mean-spirited partisan attack.
He should be careful about claiming any candidate would “seriously damage this country” after the verifiable damage caused by the Bush Administration.
It was not a Democratic president who misled Congress and the American people so he could invade Iraq based upon manufactured and hyped intelligence for political purposes; authorized the torture of
prisoners in violation of U.S. and international law; badly mismanaged the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, causing unnecessary deaths of U.S. military personnel and innocent citizens of those countries;
failed to eliminate Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban threat; wasted billions of dollars in Iraq or paid war profiteers millions of tax dollars to build shoddy shower facilities where several U.S.
soldiers have been electrocuted taking baths.
It wasn’t a Democratic president who authorized huge tax cuts for the rich while the poor and middle class suffer from poor wages and growing fuel costs. It wasn’t a Democratic president who sent our
troops into combat in a “war of choice” without properly equipping the troops and thereby contributing to the 4,000+ American deaths.
It was not a Democratic president who spent this nation into a deepening recession or who failed to respond in a timely fashion to disasters in New Orleans and other locations in this country. Reichley
should learn not to spit into the wind unless he wants it to blow back into his face.
When he insinuates that Obama will not defend this nation against terrorism, he is attacking the senator’s patriotism. That, as he has already noted, is wrong! Stop the partisan attacks and divisive
commentaries.
EDWIN E. POWELL
Woodbridge
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( RonCharest ) on July 14, 2008 at 9:22 am
Pwanon,
Yes, Sen. McCain certainly has more foreign and domestic experience than Sen. Obama. Yet, for all that experience, Sen. McCain doesn’t know the differences between the Shia and Sunni sects of Iraqis, which is basic to understanding our war on Iraq.
Sen. McCain also believes that our economy is sound, that the only recession is in our collective minds, and anyone who complains about losing their job, house, life savings, can’t buy gas or food, is a whiner.
And please, let’s talk about moral values; Sen. McCain’s stunt of divorcing his first wife, who waited for him five years while he was a captive, because she had been crippled in an accident. Divorcing her after having serial affairs, then actually gaining a marriage certificate before his divorce was final. I guess that’s Republican for “Good Moral Values.”
If I wasn’t insulted at least once each day by one of our regular wingnuts, I’d be concerned I wasn’t doing a good job posting here.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on July 10, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Ray,
I think the response from the “Party of Good Family Values,” Moral Majority folks would be:
< crickets chirping >
After all, IOIYAR (It’s Okay If You’re A Republican).
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Posted by ( pwanon ) on July 10, 2008 at 1:20 pm
You fool. My criticisms certainly aren’t ridiculous. They’re legitimate becase they’re based in fact. He has no plan to lower gas prices. He has no plan to fight the War on Terror and continue to keep Al Qaeda under siege. He has no plan to fix the housing market. On and on I could go…
You won’t justify him in this forum because you can’t justify him in any forum. My criticisms are not “smears” and your responses are inadequate to justify voting for a man with scant experience, highly questionable moral character, and no idea of how to defend us against our enemies.
It’s funny that you say he’s “the only honest man who’s earned his place in the world”...right...and by graduating from the Naval Academy, flying combat missions in Vietnam, and spending five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, John McCain hasn’t “earned” his place in the world? Please.
The fact is that McCain has vastly more experienced in domestic and foreign policy. He has the respect of our men and women in uniform. And he isn’t now, nor has he ever been, any kind of clone or ally of George W. Bush. But if “McSame” and a divorce is the best you’ve got, then you’re not discussing...you’re acting like a child. But then again...that’s what liberals do best. Bury your heads in the sand and hope problems just disappear. This election is about who can swim in the deep end of the pool...you’re still treading water in the shallow end.
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Posted by ( raywilliams ) on July 09, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Ron, help me here. What are the Republican moral minority going to say when they discover their candidate, John McCain, cheated on his first wife for years and then unceremoniously dumped her for a woman 18 years younger? Will we hear the cries of outrage on level with the comments directed at Bill Clinton or will this be somehow swept under the rug as that is just ‘boys being boys’? Ron, please explain how Jerry Falwell and friends can support such a man when their comments against Mr. Clinton were so vile.
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Posted by ( raywilliams ) on July 09, 2008 at 5:26 pm
pwanon - do you not remember the “womanly” shrills of the Republicans when Mr. Clinton was in office - talking of the “horrors” of his cigar habits. I don’t think any American troops were killed by his actions. And you are correct Bush is not running again but McSame is running on the Bush platform - same difference: stale ideas that have led to a failing economy and a bear market on Wall Street. The country needs a change and if Obama is the best we got, we go forward with him as our leader.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on July 09, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Pwanon,
I didn’t address YOUR specific criticisms of Sen. Obama because YOUR criticisms below are ridiculous. They are nothing more than parroting of Republican hit pieces. If you actually had an original thought, an issue that didn’t originate with the Great Republican Smear Machine, I would address it.
But then again, parroting Republican talking points, while summoning up all their outrage and angst to direct at the enemy of the moment, is what Conservatives do best.
Quite frankly, I feel no need to “justify” Sen. Obama in this forum; of the two major candidates running for President of the United States he’s the only honest man who’s earned his place in the world.
W is running again in the spirit of Sen. McCain, who has flip-flopped from his “Maverick” positions in the 2000 primaries to now taking nearly all of W’s positions as his own; amplified even louder like a bad movie sequel. Like what Bush is doing, you’ll LOVE McCain.
I seriously don’t like Bush, and I dislike the 2007 reincarnation of Sen. John “Bush-Lite” McCain even more.
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Posted by ( pwanon ) on July 09, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I think I mentioned it once before...but W isn’t running this time...I wasn’t sure if you’d heard that or not.
And you still didn’t address any of the specific criticisms of BHO. But that’s what liberals do...summon up all their womanly anger at W and forget to justify their candidate.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on July 09, 2008 at 11:06 am
Do you know, Pwanon;
I could almost think you’re talking about our current president when you write:
“I cannot fathom voting for a man who has no substance to him, no experience in foreign affairs, few/if any concrete domestic ideas, no military service [...] and such little character that he would sit idly by while his mentor calls 9/11...”
...calls 9/11 God’s punishment for allowing gays and feminists (Jerry Falwell).
Except I’d be substituting “priviledge of birth” with “color of skin.” And of course, I’d talk about how GWB stood by and allowed oil prices to hit $4/ gallon and climbing, after allowing his (and Cheney’s) friends in the oil business to set national energy policy.
As a former “political Independent” myself, I’d also say you’re talking nonsense about “registered Independent.” You don’t “register” as an independent, you register to vote and decline to choose a political party to check on the voting form.
But then again, talking nonsense is what Conservatives do.
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Posted by ( pwanon ) on July 09, 2008 at 7:19 am
Mr. Jacobsen,
A registered independent is someone who, when they register to vote, chooses not to declare a party affiliation. Anyone can choose to do it that way, even if they are a partisan in either direction...it’s really just a way of saying I believe both parties are fundamentally broken and I wouldn’t dare align myself with one or the other out of simple self-respect.
But I would wonder aloud how all of the things I mentioned about BHO are “smears” when they’re actually truths about a man who, with the EXACT same resume and white skin, wouldn’t be known outside Illinois.
How is it that his supporters can justify his overt racism to themselves? How do his supporters justify such a laughably thin resume? How do they justify their position that BHO will lower gas prices, when he’ll do nothing but tax windfall profits, which will RAISE gas prices? I cannot fathom voting for a man who has no substance to him, no experience in foreign affairs, few/if any concrete domestic ideas, no military service, overtly racist tones to things he claims to have written, and such little character that he would sit idly by while his mentor calls 9/11 a day where “the chickens come home to roost”, disgracing the memories of all those innocent Americans killed that day. I would never be able to live with myself voting for someone who I can legitimately ask those questions about. Even if the questions could be answered...which they can’t...the fact that they can be asked shows just how ridiculous this man is.
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Posted by ( raywilliams ) on July 08, 2008 at 4:41 pm
cobra, it takes time to bring a runaway freight train to a halt and reverse its direction. Six years of Republican House, Senate and White House damage cannot be repaired in LESS THAN two years. As for the US energy policy, it would be helpful if Mr. Cheney would provide details of his secret meetings with BIG OIL and what appears to be their joint plan to run up oil profits and position Halliburton for Cheney’s return. You mention “the guy responsible for 9/11” but once again fail to mention the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, not Iraq. So why did we invade Iraq in the war on terrorism??? The WMD is a whole different deal and had nothing to do with 9/11. And any one with any kind of people skills knew Saddam was bluffing about the weapons he said he had. But this will not be settled until November 4th and I dare say not one opinion will change between now and then!
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