Columnists detached from truth

Columnists detached from truth

Last Monday began with gloomy clouds overhead and rain that would take away any charm there may have been from recent snows. The dark mood was reinforced by opening that morning’s Vindicator to side-by-side commentaries written by Cal Thomas and George Will in response to President Obama’s recent inaugural address.

Both essays were filled with self-righteous platitudes that seemed credible when first proclaimed years ago but now mostly just raise eyebrows. Neither showed evidence that doctrinaire conservatives are ready to set aside their prejudices and see the world as it really is. Will’s assertion that, “happy days … are coming for conservatives” is just whistling past the graveyard.

Thomas seems equally detached from the truth. He cites a commentary by “the reliably liberal columnist Dana Milbank of The Washington Post,” published on Jan. 21, as evidence that the president’s speech “failed to rise to the moment.” Careful reading of that piece shows it to be a barrage of little digs at the President that no genuine moderate or liberal would have written.

Come on, Republicans! You tried hard for four years to destroy President Obama politically, and it didn’t work. All you accomplished was torpedoing numerous bills that could have benefitted our nation. More of the same will only do more damage. And don’t think that the American people won’t know that and vote accordingly in 2014 and 2016.

Robert D. Gillette, Poland

Actions, not words, reflect respect

In last Monday’s column, “One for the ‘herstory’ books,” the writer expresses the opinion that “we, the female people of the United States, would like to thank Obama because his use of female pronouns substantially outnumbered male pronouns [etc.].” She goes on to say “Women voted in droves for the candidate who treated women with respect.” Apparently her idea and my idea of respect don’t even come close. I am a woman, I am a Democrat and I didn’t vote for Obama.

The dictionary defines respect as a high or special regard. I do not feel that Obama’s vote to allow infants who survive failed abortion attempts to be placed on hospital shelves and left there to die is respect for life, be the infant male or female. This shows no respect for any life. Respect is not a word I would use to describe anyone who is taking away the constitutional rights of girls and boys by not adhering to our Constitution, which has given us all the freedoms we have enjoyed until his election. It is not respect for anyone — the young, the elderly, women or men — to undermine our doctors’ diagnoses. Obama will have a group of people with no medical background and no personal contact with the patient decide if a medically necessary procedure will be paid for by insurance, how long the wait would be, or if they would just give you a pain pill.

Our children, girls and boys, will be paying for his outlandish borrowing of money from China for generations to come. That’s respect? Our country has never been weaker in national defense. This makes us weaker both militarily and economically, and again Obama shows no respect for American women or men.

I hope to God that there are still people in America who are able to think for themselves without the media and all their bigotry to lead them. I pray they know it is under God that our nation was founded. He gave us Ten Commandments and His Bible. God’s words show how to respect everyone. Pronouns don’t.

Mary Lou Fuchs, Poland