January 13, 2008 04:53 pm
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The lesster of two evils?
Democrat or Republican? The question is easy to answer. An obvious choice can be unnerving. When the apparent perfection of one option is compared to the woeful inadequacy of the other, it makes a decision seem too easy. It is then human nature to become suspicious.
American voters have no greater responsibility to their country, their and their children’s futures and to the world than to select their president wisely. While we do not yet know who the Democrat and Republican nominees will be, any combination of the leading candidates from either party will make for the most obvious choice put to American voters in a generation. Therefore, none of the Democrats have any business being president.
This statement has less to do with any perfection among the Republican candidates than with the intellectual void demonstrated by the Democratic field. “Not ready for prime time,” comes to mind, but this does not sufficiently describe how bad things are. Alongside Hillary Clinton, add Barack Obama’s kindergarten essays to dueling celebrity endorsements and who can be quickest to retreat from America’s global conflict and raise taxes on the American people, and it becomes clear that these are extremely out of touch individuals.
To be sure, there has been some rubbish on the Republican side, but even a cursory review of the legislative and professional records of the leading contenders from each party reveals a disparity similar to adults competing with children.
For the Republicans, Rudy Giuliani served as a two-term mayor of New York City, turning a budget deficit into a surplus and taming what was thought to be an ungovernable metropolis. Before that, he held the third-highest rank in the Reagan Justice Department, obtaining over 4,000 convictions.
Mitt Romney, before serving as governor of Massachusetts, founded a venture capital firm that created billions of dollars in shareholder value, and he then went on to save the Salt Lake City Olympics. While much is made of Mike Huckabee’s history as a Baptist minister, he also was governor of Arkansas for more than a decade.
John McCain’s legislative career spans five decades, with half that time being spent in the Congress. Even Fred Thompson, whose nonchalance has transformed his once-promising campaign into less than a possibility (I donated money to him), has more experience in the U.S. Senate than all of the leading Democratic candidates totaled.
With just over one term as a senator to her credit, Hillary Clinton boasts the most extensive record of the potential Democratic nominees. In that time, Sen. Clinton cannot claim a noteworthy legislative accomplishment, and she is best known for requesting $1 million from Congress for a museum to commemorate Woodstock.
Barack Obama is nearing the halfway point of his first term in the Senate, having previously served as an Illinois state legislator and, as Clinton has correctly pointed out, has done nothing but run for president since he first arrived in Washington. Between calling for the invasion of Pakistan and fumbling a simple question on illegal alien driver’s licenses, Obama has shown that he is not the fellow to whom the nation ought to hike the nuclear football.
Forget your notions about taxes and Iraq, free trade and Iran, crime and health care and consider solely the experience of these two sets of candidates. Is there any serious issue that you would prefer to trust to a person with the Democrats’ experience, rather than that of any of the Republicans?
This decision should become unsettlingly simple, even to the Local Crank, Patrick Barkman.
W.V. Bonds
Cleburne
Fire department raises warranted
On Jan. 5 we had to call 911 for our mother’s sake. She was having difficulty breathing. She was sick at her stomach, and being elderly and a severe diabetic, her blood pressure and other such vitals were dangerously serious. This made the third time that we had to call 911 in which, once again, the Cleburne Fire Department arrived within minutes of my sister’s call.
This is just one of the reasons I supported the pay raises for the fire and police departments at the city council meeting on Sept. 11, 2007, although the main reason for my supporting those pay raises is the simple yet complex reason that these “defenders of life and limb” accept the fact that they go to work every day in harm’s way.
Some people opposed those pay raises, stating there should be an “across the board” pay raise for all city workers.
It can be easily understood why every city worker would desire a pay raise given the cost of living. However, what other jobs entail the active role of their daily duties to brave blazing flames to save a child or trapped adult from a burning house, or to protect us from the dangerous elements such as armed bank robbers or gang and drug violence that seem so prevalent in our daily world?
Street workers certainly do back-breaking work; sanitation workers certainly do horrendous work that few would find appealing; however, law enforcement and firefighters, male and female, both face possible death and bodily injuries that most of us shy away from even considering as a future career.
That takes not just dedication to duty but bravery, which should not go unappreciated, even if by a slight raise in pay.
Our family would love to publicly thank the Cleburne Fire Department for ensuring that our beloved mother might not leave us too soon by a life-threatening situation. We pray for her recovery.
Sincerely,
Jason Greywolf Leigh
Cleburne
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