Letters to the Editor: Kevin McCarthy is the kind of politician who lets democracy die a slow death. Not just a slow death, or a death by a thousand cuts, but a slow death that gradually creeps into the body politic until it is a ghost that cannot be called to life, but cannot be called out of existence either, and will eventually be left as an afterthought by those who think like McCarthy.
In this case, McCarthy should think like this: “The Democrats were elected in the face of anger and despair. If you can’t do better, you should leave.”
Of course, the people would leave McCarthy, but not with this kind of reasoning. People would leave him with this attitude because they have lived in a country where the media has taken over democracy, and that their government does not stand on its head when it is criticized.
The people would leave him with this attitude because they are a people who have stood by the side of a government that does not represent its people — that does not stand on its head when it is questioned. Not unlike McCarthy, they have accepted the excuse that they are not a people with a right to hold elected officials accountable.
I watched with a jaundiced eye as President Obama spoke about the state of the nation in his second address to Congress on Wednesday, and I saw nothing of hope or optimism. He said the government had not solved the problems that have been plaguing us, that it has not stopped terrorism, that he had sent more than 30,000 military men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan, to protect American lives.
He said the government had not been prepared for the attacks on Sept. 11, that the government had not been able to prevent a terrorist attack on American soil, and that for all his talk about doing all he could to prevent another terrorist attack on American soil, nothing had been done.
He said that the government took its eye off the ball. And I guess it does.
While I don’t have proof of