Spite was a bad reason to re-elect Barry Re: “Marion Barry has been good for Ward 8 residents,” From Readers, Dec. 4
Examiner reader Ronald Hanna takes great umbrage with
“outsiders” who deign to opine that Marion Barry is not the
paradigm of virtue. He seems to feel that Barry’s personal
failings did not in any way affect his exemplary
leadership qualities.
Hanna then indicates that outsiders’
poor opinion of Barry is precisely the reason many D.C. residents voted to keep
him in office. Spite is their great justification for
continuing to elect this dysfunctional figure.
I believe it was the Washington Post that wrote in
1998: “To understand the District of Columbia, one must
understand Marion Barry.” The WaPo has perhaps not printed
truer words since.
Ben Arnold
Centreville
Progressive Democrats abandoned democracy years ago
Re: “O’Malley, McDonnell take rivalry national,” Dec. 4
The Washington Examiner has sadly fallen for the reworked adjective of the Democrat Party. In the sidebar to your cover story, you correctly say “Republican
run states with 2012 gubernatorial races.” But then, with an Orwellian twist, the sidebar refers to “Democratically
run states with 2012 gubernatorial races.”
The Democrat Party left anything described as “democratic” decades ago. My party embarrasses me daily.
The slide began in the 1970s with the Equal Rights Amendment
and the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. I was a Henry Howell Virginia Democrat married to a Marylander, and was slapped in the face by a radical progressive Democrat Party in this new, very
gerrymandered blue state.
I’m not moving and I’m not changing my voter registration. But please stop using this misnomer.
Democrats are not democratic.
I am working every day to correct that.
Katie Holland
Silver Spring
Left does not embrace diversity of ideas
Re: “Liberals are hypocrites on Rush’s race baiting,” Dec. 1
Gregory Kane brings attention to the media’s double standards regarding the racial hypocrisy of the Left. However, his column doesn’t discuss one aspect of diversity that the Left absolutely despises.
Diversity is a
three-legged stool comprising race, culture and ideas. Each of
these legs correlates with, but is distinct from, the others. The Left has historically waged war against
the diversity of ideas.
Diversity of ideas leads to diversity of values. Diversity of values
leads to a diversity of governance. In America, we have 50 states. Embracing diversity means embracing the idea of
eliminating a number of large federal agencies, administering
entitlements at the local level
and sending more of our tax dollars to local governments than
the federal government. The Left’s hostility to this kind of diversity reveals what a fraud it truly is.
Brian Wrenn
Washington
