Obama puts self-interest over U.S.’ best interests Re: “Obamablows it on Keystone decision,” Jan.19
Trying to keep the votes of environmentalists, President Obama killed the proposed Keystone pipeline, which would have created tens of thousands of badly needed jobs.
The pipeline would have helped lower the cost of oil. Plus we would be buying oil from a friendly neighboring country instead of paying billions to countries that are hostile toward America.
Obama’s excuse was that “more” time was needed to assess the risks involved — even though the pipeline project had already been studied for over three years. Can you imagine a president putting his personal self-interest over what undeniably would be good for the country?
Al Eisner
Silver Spring
Gingrich’s failure to make Va. ballot is telling
Re: “Perry appeals judge’s ruling on Va. primary ballot,” Jan. 15
Most discussions about the GOP primaries miss a game-changing issue related to Virginia’s primary ballot, which has only been referenced in passing.
Although the Virginia ballot access law can and should be debated, that is a separate issue. The focus should be on a candidate’s commitment, attention to detail, and ability to garner a relatively small amount of support needed to do what the law requires — all indicative of qualities that any president should have. When most of the Republican field failed to meet this mark, my decision was easily made.
Newt Gingrich has been involved in politics a long time and lives in Virginia. If he could not garner enough support from registered voters in Virginia to get on the ballot, can he really be expected to follow through and get the support needed to win the nomination?
And if Gingrich did not know about the law and was blindsided by what he compared to his own Pearl Harbor, I’m not sure he should admit it. Perhaps in the future, getting your name on the Virginia primary ballot should be more of an indicator of who is prepared to be president than any of the early primaries.
Jeff Wright
Centreville
Sorry, bag stat was off by a few billion
Re: “Montgomery’s bag stats are unbelievable,” From Readers, Jan. 24
Daniel P. Hale from Woodbridge wrote a response to my Jan. 22 letter to editor (“Only environmentally friendly bags are reusable”) concerning paper bag production and Montgomery County’s bag law.
I want to apologize for a typo in the letter I wrote, which is why Mr. Hale found a problem with the statistics. Instead of stating that Americans use 10 billion paper bags each year, I wrote “10 million” bags.
I am sorry for the confusion this misstatement caused.
Esther Bowring
Public information officer,
Montgomery County
