A new low for Charles Reichley
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Edwin E. Powell
Published: July 7, 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 ( Grant Gary Jacobsen ) on July 08, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Who the heck is “Busch”?
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Posted by ( Grant Gary Jacobsen ) on July 08, 2008 at 3:05 pm
What the heck is a “registered independent”?
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Posted by ( Godsaveus ) on July 08, 2008 at 1:36 pm
New direction ?
With Obama, there is not direction because he is a flip flopper like Kerry; one day says one thing and another day change. One day he said in his second day in power he is going to bring all troops home the now he change. One day he says he is going to sit unconditional with our enemies and the next day he change. He is so undecided that he and his wife need to reintroduce themselves, but with a new look more moderate because with his extremist position was loosing votes. He does not bring any solution to stop energy crisis, because not hybrids cars, solar energy or wind are sufficient to replace oil and he oppose nuclear energy and coal. If the price of gas is going up is because all liberal group from the Democratic party are against that kind of energy so , what is his plan; Obama is asking to set our thermostat over 72 degrees, do not drive SUVs , do not eat what we want , are those the kind of solutions he bring to us? Is that the kind of solutions we need.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on July 08, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Who is crying Cobra?
And who is demanding that Reichley stop writing his columns?
Unlike Conservatives, I believe in free-speech; and believe that the antidote to ridiculous charges, lies, smears, and cherry-picked facts designed to support a fantasy story line (i.e: normal conservative writings) is more free speech.
I actually look forward to reading Reichley’s columns. It provides me endless amusement and an opportunity to submitt yet another post showing just how ridiculous and self-parodying Conservatives have become.
As do your posts, Cobra.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on July 08, 2008 at 10:30 am
WOW Pwanon,
I am impressed! You managed to hit all the major Right-wing Obama smears and attack lines in one short posting. You even threw in the current Republican-created urban legend of China drilling for oil off Cuba - and added the evil empire of Russia joining them. Was that your personal twist, or did you read that somewhere in Wingnut Land?
Remarkable.
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Posted by ( raywilliams ) on July 08, 2008 at 9:58 am
So pwanon, why don’t the oil companies drill on sites they already hold leases to? If drilling is the answer, and oil has been discovered and is lying there waiting to be pumped out - what’s the delay? Well, they wait to squeeze the supply available to us so we will kowtow to their demands for future oil profits in even more lucrative locations. I guess there is a reason jackasses are animals of labor and elephants are dressed up to perform in the circus with clowns.
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Posted by ( cobra ) on July 08, 2008 at 9:44 am
Now hold on a minute Libs,
The executive branch of the Government has only so much power. Libs have had the House & Senate for two years. What have they done to solve the problems you outline above? As far as the intelligence on WMD’s, we can go back and get all the quotes from the Libs on the need to get rid of Saddam including intelligence agencies from around the world. I know you Libs like to blame Busch for everything but radical Islam took aim at the US long before Bush became President. The guy responsible for 911 said they were utterly amazed at the US response to 911. They assumed we would just sit back and go to the UN again for another useless resolution. When caught, his first statement was, “Take me to my Lawyers in NY”. He got his Lawyer all right in the form of a Water board. Ok let’s talk about Osama. Twice the Sudan Government had him in custody and was willing to turn him over to the US. But no, good old Bill Clinton said we had no reason to hold him. Boy you libs sure have short memories. I thought you guys loved Busch. Let’s not forget he was on your side with Illegal Immigration.
Ronnie Charest,
Reichley has the same right to his opinion as you do. Many of us feel the same about your rediculous liberal puke rants on this post. I choose not to read your posts and you can do the same with Reichley. Quit your crying.
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Posted by ( pwanon ) on July 08, 2008 at 9:29 am
I would preface my remarks by saying that I’m a registered independent, and have voted for Gore and Kerry in the last two elections. But this nation’s acceptance of a candidate as laughable at BHO makes me ashamed that I ever supported the party of jackasses.
It’s so entertaining that supporters of BHO think he’ll do anything to stem rise of gasoline prices, when in actuality his ideas will do nothing but increase the price. To decrease the price, we need to increase the supply or decrease the demand. There is no way for him to decrease the demand. So increasing the supply is all we have…and he certainly isn’t going to allow any drilling in areas where we could increase our domestic supply and limit how much overseas oil we have to buy. Of course, everybody in the world gets this (that is, everyone except for American liberals) as evidenced by the fact that China and Russia have a joint oil expoloration project going 60 miles off the coast of Florida. Great news for us. His other idea…to tax windfall profits…will do nothing but raise prices more as the oil companies pass on these taxes to the consumers.
Secondly, what is this “new” direction that BHO will lead us in? Of partisan unity? He has the most liberal voting record of all 100 Senators and has sponsored no meaningful bipartisan legislation. Actually, he’s sponsored no important legislation whatsoever for us to judge what his “new” direction would be, but apparently rhetoric is enough for his weak-minded supporters.
Or perhaps the “new” direction will be to promote harmony between the races? Since he sat passively and quietly for 20 years while his “spiritual mentor” railed against ALL white people, I’d assume he’s okay with the same ideas…otherwise, at some point during the 20 years, he might have contemplated leaving.
He described his racist white grandmother as “a typical white person”...but apparently all of his white liberal supporters don’t mind being slandered by their own candidate. Hell, his own wife has talked of her disdain for this nation openly. Apparently this country is so bad to black people that she could only go to Princeton and get six figure jobs all over the private sector.
He associates with terrorist sympathizers who believe we deserve what we got on 9/11, and have said as much publicly. He would negotiate without preconditions with murderous tyrannies like Iran, who threated to murder, in cold blood, 5 million Jews every day simply because they are Jews. For all of their rhetoric about cultural sensitivity, you’d think this would upset liberals…but for some reason it doesn’t.
The simple truth is that BHO will damage this nation irreperably. He will capitulate to Muslim extremists all over the world. Al Qaeda will set up shop wherever they please, and will plan and attack with impunity as they know he is too cowardly to respond on our behalf. I’m tired of hearing liberals complain about W. He’s not running. Neither is Dick Cheney or Don Rumsfeld. John McCain is not even close to the same as W…and never has been. Attempts to brand him as “McSame” only demonstrate the lack of intelligence found commonly in the American liberal.
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Posted by ( raywilliams ) on July 08, 2008 at 7:39 am
This country needs a new direction if we are to survive and Senator Obama is that direction. America cannot afford more of the McSame if we are to recover financially, morally and militarily. With the Bush/McCain policies we will soon see gasoline at $5.00 per gallon, a further weakening in the value of the dollar, more tax cuts for the rich, continued foreclosures and the potential of spending another 100 years mired in Iraq. America must reverse this downward spiral in November by voting for Obama.
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Posted by ( RonCharest ) on July 08, 2008 at 7:00 am
Excellent letter Mr. Powell!
Mr. Reichley excels at dropping smears into his writing, while simultaneously denying doing any such thing. Thank you for pointing out the obvious – just how badly the Republican Party, with a Republican president, have damaged our country.
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