Mischaracterizing John McCommas

BIAS ALERT! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!

Here we go again. OK it's a small thing, but why did the Norwich Bulletin Editorial Page Editor take out the quotes out of this sentence I submitted with my letter to the editor?

This is it -- Case in point, in 2006 State Senator Donald Williams (D-Brooklyn) proposed a bill "designed to ensure truthful campaign advertising and fight negative campaigning".


In the paper today on the other hand it reads: Case in point, in 2006 state Sen. Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, proposed a bill designed to ensure truthful campaign advertising and fight negative campaigning.

It is exactly the same thing except the quotes are missing. I put in quotes and in the newspaper *POOF*. The quotes are gone! Where did they go? Hummmmm? The Twilight Zone maybe?

Now I meant a certain thing when I put those words in quotes and now that the quotes have been removed, the meaning of what I wrote is now different. Was this done deliberatly?

You Betcha!

The quotes I used was meant to mock the original source of the quote, which was Bulletin Buddy Don Williams. I used Don Williams' own words against him -- which was very clever of me if I do say so myself. My Mother always told me I was a clever boy...

Now with the quotes removed I am made to look as if I am characterizing Williams' anti--First Amendment legislation he proposed as being designed to ensure truthful campaign advertising and fight negative campaigning. Who in the world can be against negative campaigning except an hair-splitting old crank like me? I might as well spouted off a letter against kittens and sunshine and walks in the park.

Now when you put those words back in quotes like I had them -- "designed to ensure truthful campaign advertising and fight negative campaigning"....there is a subtle difference!

See? Without quotes this is do-gooder legislation no critic can touch it with a ten foot pool without looking foolish. WITH QUOTES this is Soviet Union-inspired propaganda.

I meant the latter of course. No matter. At least most of my message made it through unmolested and unaltered. But it just goes to prove once again that editors can not resist tempering down the messages critical of them.

Gotcha Mr. Hackett. You got caught again.

Chain of LTE letters

Those of us on both the Left and Right consider the editorial pages to be the street where we engage in mortal combat. My friend Bill Jenkins laughed at me when he saw me buy a paper and go to the opinion pages first -- even skipping the front page. He does the same thing. I think we all do. I have heard it is the most read part of the paper and I don't doubt it.

So here is a nice chain I got involved in. There may be yet another letter which I will post it is materializes. I highly suspect that the second letter and the forth were written by the same person -- Marianne Jenkins. I don't think I needed two bites at the apple to make my point. Ms. Jenkins apparently does not have the same confidence.

They are signed by different names but both letters made the invalid assertion that Democrats and Republicans who are not Obama fans are simply uninformed.

I find that to be none to arrogant.

* * *

Of Course Obama Knew Of Wright's Sentiments

Sen. Barrack Obama has been attending a church that spews hatred for America, particularly against whites. Liberals say go to the Internet to learn about Sen. Obama not being a Muslim. Well, go to the Internet and learn about Sen. Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose church gave a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan.

The senator's friend and adviser says America created the AIDS virus to kill blacks, puts blacks in prison rather than killing them and that America deserved to be attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, because of its racism and policies around the world.
Go to the Internet and listen to this racist reverend spewing hatred for “white” America. Sen. Obama at first said he was unaware that his friend had given such hateful sermons and he never attended a service where hatred was spoken. Who believed that Sen. Obama was one of only a few uninformed in the Chicago area of Rev. Wright's denunciations of “white” America and Israel? If Sen. Obama didn't know, would you want him to be president when he doesn't even know what is going on in his own back yard?

Can you imagine what the media would do if Sens. John McCain or Hillary Clinton had a close priest friend who gave racist sermons against blacks and had given a lifetime achievement award to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke?
If Sen. Obama can't disown the Rev. Wright or racists in his black community, why should white people disown David Duke? The gullible will accept Sen. Obama's brilliant rhetoric as the compass to his thinking. They can try to convince themselves that a man who continues to belong to a church that describes itself on its Web site as “unashamedly black” will unify the country.

Frank Ricci

Groton
3-21-08
The New London Day

Obama Denounced His Pastor's Words

In response to the letter titled “Of course Obama knew of Wright's sentiments,” published March 21, regarding Sen. Barack Obama and The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, I suggest the letter writer listen carefully to Sen. Obama's speech given in Philadelphia last week.

Sen. Obama denounced the angry words of Rev. Wright, as most Americans hoped he would. And, I believe he would also denounce the angry words of the letter writer. Such incendiary talk, of both the letter writer and Rev. Wright, do nothing to unite our country.

Much has been said about words during Sen. Obama's campaign, even to the point that “words mean nothing, action is everything.” Yet, the pen can be mightier than the sword, both for good and bad. Sen. Obama has shown how words can unite a country that hasn't been this divided for decades. Young and old alike have become engaged in the political process with the hope of a change — a hope that Sen. Obama has inspired.

We can talk about race and division and outrage and oppression. All of these have a place in our history. We can be angry about who said what and who hates whom. This is the norm. This is what we've been doing for years. Or, we can decide to retire that script and begin with something new, something that speaks of coming together and treating others well and seeing a new point of view.

We, black and white, male and female, rich and poor, are fatigued with the status quo of America. We long for the days when America was a world leader exemplifying integrity and honesty. Sen. Obama gives us hope for the return of such days.

Marianne Jenkins

Madison
3-26-08

Obama Only Denounced Pastor Out Of Shame

This “typical white person” must respond to the ridiculous presumptions in the letter titled “Obama denounced his pastor's words,” published March 26. It was in response to a letter titled “Of course Obama knew of Wright's sentiments,” which was published March 21.

To state the obvious, the only reason Sen. Barrack Obama distanced himself from his own reverend's inflammatory, racist remarks was because he was shamed into it. The fact his supporters can't hide is that Sen. Obama willingly chose to have his young, impressionable daughters listen to this sort of speech every Sunday.

The true test of character is how a man acts when he thinks no one is looking and clearly Sen. Obama flunks. Let's look at the facts. Sen. Obama's wife stated she was only “proud of her country for the first time in her adult life” when she thought she was being crowned first lady. Sen. Obama's reverend is a race-baiter by the apparent admission of the author of the letter titled “Obama denounced his pastor's words.”

I was always taught that birds of a feather flock together. Sen. Obama's views can't be that far different than his wife's and reverend's. Sen. Obama is just cleverer at hiding it

— until now that is.

John R. McCommas

Willimantic
4-1-08



Female President OK If She's Not Clinton

In the letter titled, “Obama only denounced pastor out of shame,” published April 1, the writer clearly doesn't have all the facts he claims to have. The rest of us [sic] have accepted Sen. Barack Obama's explanation of where he stands on the issue.

The writer implies that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was making comments such as those all the time. He was not, and the letter writer would know that if he had actually done any research as opposed to trusting in conservative talk radio hosts. The comment by the senator's wife was taken out of context [no it wasn't!} as well and its true meaning was adequately explained (at least for the rest of us).

Regarding the letter titled, “Men a political failure, so consider Clinton vote,” published April 1, I'll admit I support Sen. Obama. However, my reasons are related to policy, not gender. I find it hard to believe that so many women are supporting Clinton based on gender. Vote the issues.

I speak for a lot of voters when I say I support the idea of a woman president, just not this woman. There are many others who would do a better job.

Bob James

New London
4-3-08

Brainwashed at ECSU

As every busy student at Eastern Connecticut State University knows, we are regularly inundated with highly annoying junk emails from the university itself every single day. The subjects span from gonorrhea to not-so-subtle hints about whom we should be voting for in the elections.

On a particularly exasperating day I imprudently fired back an angry email using words I should not have used. The subject was a state-sponsored propaganda lecture series about “Peace and Human Rights”. What set off my fuse was among the list of all-liberal speakers was State Rep. Denise Merrill (D-Storrs). For Merrill of all people to preach human rights is mockery of the term. Merrill spent this last session in the general assembly taking away the expressly enumerated First Amendment rights of workers in Catholic hospitals. Merrill delights in the knowledge that her new law forces practicing Catholic caregivers to violate their faith -- or violate the law.

The reason for this is plain. Merrill is intolerant of practicing Catholics. Their very existence offends her. Merrill thinks Catholics should not be Catholic. And yet she is held up as an authority by our university on the subject of peace and human rights?

Freedom of Religion isn't a human right now a days?

My responding email which again included a few inappropriate four letter words was swiftly followed by a call from one of the Deans scolding me not to respond in that way to a man who is only doing his job.

Fair enough. The larger point however is that ECSU should not be using the taxpayer and student funded email system to push their Nanny State agenda. Despite their claims to the contrary ECSU does not subject students to diverse viewpoints.

When was the last time a conservative speaker spoke here?

In my three years I have yet to see a single one.

What I do see is the monthly featured reading list outside the library’s café and not one single time has a conservative writer been featured. Lots of liberals though!

Republican Rob Simmons was this district’s congressman for 6 years yet I don’t recall ever getting an email inviting me to some function where he would be in attendance much less delivering an important speech. If Congresman Simmons was ever here, I curiously missed the invitation.

I was informed however in the same email in question that liberal Democrat Congressman Joe Courtney will be giving his “The Nation and Peace” speech at 5:45 November 15th in the Student Center Theatre.

I am sure ECSU's paid staff will be repeatedly reminding me by email so I won’t forget.

The only Republican I know of that has ever been invited – and I was made aware of – is liberal Republican Jodi Rell for a strictly ceremonial function.

Next door at UCONN best selling conservative author Ann Coulter got as far as the podium but a crowd of liberal thugs was allowed to make sure she was not heard. UCONN can at least say they tried.

ECSU can not say the same.

As Ben Shapiro correctly observes in his book Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth: "Universities accept into their waiting clutches young open-minded students ready to learn. They turn out mainstream liberals spouting the Democratic Party line”. The cover of the book illustrates the point even better – Cloned Stepford Students appear in lock step with roboticly dead stares.

Why can’t ECSU have a lecture series with conservative thinkers instead of just liberals all the time? Why is it so unthinkable to invite Coulter or some other noted conservative to speak, inform us by email

-- and then actually let her speak?