Letters to the Editor

A matter of respect

It was only a matter of time before the true colors of the health care opponents came out. It didn’t surprise me that, sooner or later, a “birther,” a “deather,” or some oddball combination of sub-humanity like U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson could be expected to let loose with a foul attack on the president. Just like a skunk in a rose garden.

But to do it at a joint meeting of the Congress, attended by a televised audience estimated in the millions worldwide, was an egregious affront to common decency. This wasn’t a right-wing town hall meeting in a state where the confederate flag still flies above the state capitol.

Maybe this clown of a congressman can be court-martialed from his place in the command staff of the National Guard in South Carolina for insulting his commander in chief. If a Democratic congressman of color had acted in a similar manner with President Bush, you can bet your butt there would have been calls for his expulsion from Congress. No apology accepted.

Frankly, I’m tired of the worn-out, lame, “old boy” excuses that are always dredged up about what the Democrats did or didn’t do in past situations. For example, “Didn’t Nancy Pelosi say the CIA lied about something?” But wasn’t it dragged around for months by the Republicans? Despite the fact that the CIA has had a long history of lying since its inception?

As my mother used to say, “If they put their heads in the fire, does that make it right for you to do the same?” Apparently, it’s all right if you’re a Republican. Especially since the old refrain of, “But, Clinton …” ran out of mileage. Now, the password begins: “He shouldn’t have interrupted the president, but …”

This wasn’t the first time that this congressman offered up unwanted advice in public. Wilson had the nerve to say that the late Strom Thurmond’s black daughter should have remained in the shadows instead of “smearing” her father’s legacy by revealing her relationship to him. Does this sound like racism to you?

Unfortunately, there are right-wing nuts in this country who will sign on to any claim about President Obama, whether ridiculous, extreme or untrue. Only eight months into the Obama presidency, Dick Armey and Tom Delay have resurfaced from the swamp to join Dick Cheney in spewing garbage after presiding over the Bush agenda that put most of us in dire straits. Fact is, we would have been in a much worse condition if the president had followed the Republicans’ advice to let the market fail rather than take corrective action.

The opponents of President Obama can turn out 10 million marchers and it won’t change the fact that they lost the election. All it proves to me is that you can fool some of the people all of the time when they’re influenced by racism and fear.