Apr 27, 2008

Letters

John McCain

Dear Editor: I don't trust John McCain's newfound empathy for the downtrodden during his campaign appearances on the [Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama] where civil rights marchers were beaten in the '60s, or in his appearance in New Orleans this past week with cameras rolling for TV advertisements to be used in his campaign. Where has he been for the past 40 years for the poor and for the civil rights struggle? He voted against the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and now says he was wrong to do so. It is Karl Rovian to use poor people as a backdrop for his campaign ads and by trying to say he cares for the Hurricane Katrina victims. He didn't do anything about it when it happened. Where was he?

I find his actions disingenuous. U.S. Rep. John Lewis was there on that bridge and beaten as a civil rights worker. After law school at Harvard, Barack Obama spent time in Chicago to help organize the needy rather than in corporate America. Hillary Clinton spent time in the south helping the poor as a young person. So they have more credibility about their sincerity.

I hope people are not swayed by the slick campaign ads that will come to sell a candidate and will instead look at what the candidates did and didn't do long before running for president.

Edith Groner,

Palo Alto



The deficit

Dear Editor: Tax cuts, fiscal irresponsibility and military aggression by the Bush administration changed our federal budget surplus from the Clinton years into a string of deficits.

Total national debt was $5.7 trillion at the start of President Bush's tenure. It will be about $9.7 trillion when the next president is inaugurated. It's been increasing at $500 billion a year. To be fair, subtract the annual interest on the initial $5.7 trillion ($362 billion per year) from the new debt and the Bush years will still have added more than $1 trillion to the debt. By the end of his term, George Bush will run up at least $3,375 in debt for every person in the country.

I think it would be fair to bill this back to those who voted for him, instead of passing it on to our children and grandchildren.

I also feel that those who voted Republican in 2004 should pay for all future costs of the Iraq war, including improvements to the Department of Veterans Affairs: hospitalization, outpatient care and disability compensation. And again, to be fair, citizens who voted Democratic in 1996 should pay for rebuilding our armed forces to levels suitable for national defense, since a large part of the Clinton budget surplus was achieved by cutting military support.

Of course these thoughts are unrealistic, for we all share the burden once the election is over. We have another election coming up. Let's search our souls and make the right choice for our next president.

Don Baraka,

Menlo Park



Sheriff Munks

Dear Editor: U.S. Reps. Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo are right to call for a local independent investigation regarding Sheriff Greg Munks and Undersheriff Carlos Bolanos' participation when caught at a brothel being investigated for prostitution in Las Vegas (April 18, Daily News, "Operation Lockdown").

We should also investigate Sheriff Munks' fitness to command beyond the above-cited events.

Last year, Sheriff Munks and Barbara Pierce, a former mayor of Redwood City, met with 400 attendees at the First United Methodist Church regarding federal immigration enforcement raids. Sheriff Munks "emphasized that his department can protect citizens by establishing a trusting relationship with all community members." That is true, but then he contravened his oath of office by stating, "A lot of the trust we built up was damaged with the [federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids. ... I want you to know that our department will not cooperate with those ICE raids." If Sheriff Munks and our politicians work for us, then they cannot be dismissive in enforcing our immigration laws and providing mutual assistance.

Enforcement is not that difficult. The initial contact with a person should not be to determine immigration status, but to investigate what brought law enforcement to their attention.

Enforcement is not that difficult. The initial contact with a person should not be to determine immigration status, but to investigate what brought law enforcement to their attention. If that person does not have command of conversational English and has a heavy accent, there is a good chance that person was not born or schooled in the United States. That should be the first clue to ask further questions about immigration status.

The sheriff's sworn oath of office to support and defend our federal and state constitutions and laws has been compromised, bringing into question his ethics, judgment, decision-making, applied principles of leadership, and best practices in management.

Jack Kirkpatrick

Redwood City