Letter To The Editor for Saturday, October 25, 2008

• Obama’s favored status, bunk

• Name the sources

• Vote experience for president, too

• Isn’t retreating insufficient?

Obama’s favored status, bunk

Your front-page valentine to “Barack the Anointed” (“Powell endorses Obama for president,” A1, Oct. 20) typifies the blatant favoritism Barack Obama enjoys across the media spectrum. 

It is inconceivable that a Republican with similar closet skeletons could be on the verge of being elected dogcatcher, let alone leader of the free world.

Consider Obama’s recent ad blaming the nation’s economic woes on “eight years of Bush/McCain policies.” In fact, the sub-prime mess had its birth under the Jimmy Carter administration. Lenders were pressured to make loans to unqualified homebuyers or face charges of racial discrimination. This recipe for disaster continued during the Clinton years. Left to their own devices, lenders don’t make risky loans.

Republican efforts to head off this collapse were repeatedly blocked by the Democrats over the years. In fact, the only Democrat to rake in more Fannie and Freddie cash than Obama is Democrat Chris Dodd. The difference being Dodd had 30 years to line his pockets compared to Obama’s three. Obama’s unofficial advisor Frank Raines pocketed $90,000,000 during his six-year head of Fannie Mae. It seems the books were cooked to meet complex bonus formulas in years when bonuses were not warranted.

Obama’s associations with traitors such as the bomber Bill Ayers and Frank Marshall Davis, a long time member of the Communist Party USA, whom Obama cites as a mentor in his memoir, would prevent him from getting the low-level security clearance required of a Senate page. Yet he’s on the verge of being handed the “nuclear football” as our next president. And his sweetheart property deal with felon Tony Rezko is little different than the real estate bribe that landed Republican congressman Randy Cunningham in prison.

The other monkey wrench in our economic gears is, of course, the energy crisis. It has been the left that has shut down the nuclear power industry, blocked offshore and ANWR drilling, stifled construction of new refining plants and put us at the mercy of treacherous Muslim and other oil-producing enemies. Obama stated he’s fine with high gas prices — we just got there too quickly.

Unfortunately for the country, McCain was more concerned with his reach-across-the-aisle, bipartisan maverick image than he was in stopping Obama. He seemed to find it distasteful to bring up the unpleasant facts about his opponent and the Democrats whose approval he sought. Obviously big media isn’t going to do it for him.

• John Burns, Princeville

Name the sources

In response to “Let’s play the blame game,” Letters, Oct. 23, from Michael Meek:

You state that people who are writing in “don’t really know,” they “only think they know” … you even insult and degrade the people you are writing about by equating them with monkeys. You ask whether facts matter or not and throw in a Mark Twain quote to dismiss facts that you don’t agree with, with the explanation that the belief in these facts is merely a mistake or illusion. You are pretty condenscending and presumptuous and quite in line with the general direction and tone of GOP thinking.

You write how congressman Frank and President Clinton were “instrumental in getting Fannie and Freddie to make loans to people who were not qualified.” Could you please name the legislation?

You also write how in 1992 a “democratic controlled Congress mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low- and medium-income borrowers.” Again can you please specify and point me to the actual legislation that you are referring to?

My point is this: you may be right, you may be wrong — either way, when you write about stuff and claim it to be fact — you really should include specific, reliable sources to back up your words, so that those of us who are willing to do so, can take the time to do the research and confirm or disprove of your claims. Really, what are your sources?

• Stan Koga, Kapa‘a

Vote experience for president, too

Several people have written recently to advise us to vote for the one with the most experience. 

Very good idea and be sure to think that way when you vote for president. As some say, the younger inexperienced people can run again when the world is not in such a quagmire.

Thanks for your inputs.

 • Bobbie Love, Kapa‘a

Isn’t retreating insufficient?

Out here in the far-far Westside of Kaua‘i, specifically beyond the Small Boat Harbor at Kikiaola, our beach is eroding once again.

How come?

Many decades ago, the same thing happened. In fact, Kaumuali‘i Highway partially disappeared for a while as the waves pounded against the roadway relentlessly. Boulders were bulldozed in to mitigate the mighty Pacific Ocean’s currents that shifted tons of beach sand somewhere else. Somehow, some way, the beach returned. A sense of normalcy resumed. Fast forward to the repair of the Small Boat Harbor at Kikiaola, 2008. A similar situation seems to be occurring. Is there, by any chance, a link between what’s happening at the boat harbor and the disappearance of our shoreline? The issue was brought up at public meetings among the old-timers who attended those meetings. The responses were always vague with promises to “look into the matter” but no clear evidence was brought to the public’s attention as to what could be clearly documented.

Residents of Kekaha didn’t need to study what happened. We just had to use alternate routes for years to get to, and from, our homes. With the goodly number of estate residences that have now been added to our shoreline right across that disappearing beach, might the suggestion to retreat be grossly insufficient (“Erosion control: Suggesting ‘retreat’ for beach conservation,” A1, Oct. 24)?

• Jose Bulatao, Kekaha