In today’s (June 16, 2007) Herald Journal this letter to the Editor appeared.
Cooked brains’ a bipartisan ill
To the editor:
I would like to thank Don E. Kirby for making my day with his letter of June 7, 2007. What a guy — what a sense of humor. How clever of him to be able to use his diagnostic ability to point out the ravages of global warming. The dreaded “Cooked Brain Syndrome.” However, his letter implies that only radical left-wingers are susceptible to this terrible malady. If we follow his line of thinking, we can also apply his diagnosis to a long list of right-wingers. For example: Lewis “Scooter” Libby, sentenced to jail for obstruction of justice and lying to the grand jury. Tom Delay, under indictment for conspiracy charges in state elections. Robert Ney, Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff serving time for fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. Mark Foley had to resign from Congress and go into hiding because of an online sex scandal. Now President Bush is showing symptoms of cooked brains. At the G-8 summit in Europe he agreed to “call for substantial global emissions reductions to fight global warming.” I believe that those in leadership positions, Republican or Democratic, liberal or conservative, left or right who break laws, lie to cover up their misdeeds and the misdeeds of others should be held responsible.
So Mr Kirby, let’s be fair and call Cooked Brain Syndrome what it is — a bipartisan affliction.
Marcella Christensen
Logan
The writer makes some points which I believe deserve further examination. First she starts off with “Scooter Libby” and his conviction. In my opinion this whole issue is a total miscarriage of justice. The Prosecutor knew almost from day one who “leaked Valerie Plame’s name.” It was Richard Armitage (state department) who was a critic of the Iraq war. Remember, the CIA and the media have claimed from day one that her name was leaked by the Bush admin. to punish her husband Joe Wilson, because he claimed to have debunked the Uranium for Niger claim (also not true). Since Plame’s status was not undercover, clearly no law was broken, nor has anyone been charged with this. Her status was a legitimate part of the story. So after two and one half years of investigation of a non crime (and millions of dollars spent) Mr. Libby was charged for having a poor memory. If you examine the trial transcripts you will find that most of the reporters who testified had an equally bad memory but they weren’t part of the administration. One wasn’t even called to testify even though she previously stated that Ms. Plame’s CIA status was common knowledge. Mr. Libby stated early in his testimony that Vice President Cheney told him Plame’s status, but he later forgot this. So clearly, he was not trying to protect anyone with his later mis-statement.
What hasn’t been commented on is Ms. Plame lied to a Congressional committee about the role she played in sending her husband, since proven by released documents. But evidently that doesn’t add up to a crime like failure to remember how you found out about someone’s status. I have written extensively before on this whole political witch-hunt, so I will not bother you with any more details. Compare Mr. Libby’s treatment to former Clinton National Security adviser Sandy Burger. Not only did he lie about the documents which he both stole and destroyed but only received a slap on the wrist compared to Libby. Also Mr. Libby received a sentence nearly twice that of any of the Watergate people who lied and covered up their misdeeds. There is also the issue of the jury which contained a former reporter of the Washington post and others with a clear conflict of interest.
Next, the letter to the Editor writer brings up the indictment of Tom delay which occurred before the election in 2006, by a prosecutor with a clear partisan record. She doesn’t seem to find it strange that no trial or similar action has followed since. Jack Abramoff gave money to both Republicans and Democrats including Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton. This of course received much less coverage than their Republican counterparts. Finally Mark Folley who didn’t even commit a crime but was guilty of being a protected person if he had the right politics, is named. Perhaps someone can help me. If you are a homosexual (especially if you like boys) are you not safe from any criticism unless of course if you are a republican? I can never keep the whole thing straight. There are several examples of Democrats engaging in even worse behavior than this, who were never even censured by their buddies in Congress, but they had the right politics. One was even reelected in Massachusetts. I could go on but you get the drift.
Peace |