Obama’s policies matter most to blacks Re: “Vote for Obama because he’s black?” Oct. 20
I had to take a chill pill when I read Cal Thomas’ condescending and insulting assessment of black support for President Obama. His insinuation that the black community is monolithic and speaks in one voice revealed a total lack of understanding.
I will do my Ricky Ricardo impersonation and ‘splain to Mr. Thomas why he obviously missed the mark when he had the temerity to write: “[Blacks’] loyalty should not be to a party, but to themselves, their families and their best interests, which lie outside a welfare system that has locked too many of them into dependence as an addiction to a government check.”
Like most Americans, black Americans have watched the machinations of the leaders of the opposition party and how they have treated the POTUS. Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Michele Bachmann, et al., have said early and often that their primary goal was to ensure that “Barack Obama is a one-term president.”
I submit that policies and the manner in which one comports oneself are a far better barometer of loyalty than the hue of one’s skin.
Marvin E. Adams
Washington
Planned highway system would have ruined D.C.
Re: “Thank Arlington’s Zimmerman for I-66 traffic,” Oct. 19
In Barbara Hollingsworth’s plea for Arlington County to overturn a nearly 40-year-old binding agreement restricting I-66 to four lanes inside the Beltway, she manages to take a swipe at D.C. residents as well. She calls our opposition to a citywide freeway network proposed in the 1960s “short-sighted and incompetent.”
So what’s the plan she still pines for? For starters, the C&O Canal was to become a superhighway. A second freeway would have sliced through Glover Archbold Park, bifurcating the historic neighborhoods of Georgetown and Foxhall Village (and turning my local park into an interchange.) And that was just the half of it. I-95 would have carved up historic Shaw, Petworth and Takoma Park. And let’s not forget that I-270 was designed to replace the beauty of Rock Creek Park.
While I don’t begrudge Ms. Hollingsworth’s decision to live in distant Northern Virginia, the idea that residents of D.C. or Arlington County should pave over our parks, homes and communities for her driving convenience is, to quote her, “insane.”
Paul DonVito
Washington
What’s so bad about bailouts?
Re: “Wall Street protesters are half-right,” Oct. 19
Regarding John Stossel’s op-ed on “occupying Wall Street,” the history of past robber-barons is something the current occupiers don’t want to learn. And Stossel himself hasn’t thought out his stance against “Wall Street bailouts.”
The U.S. Congress and members of our government put pressure on specific corporations, pressure that later forced them into financial disaster.
Why shouldn’t the government bail them out?
Jerry Randall
Wauwatosa, Wis.
