In response to Randy Ridgel”s letter of March 8 in the Lake County Record-Bee, I am reminded of Ronald Reagan”s response to what can only be viewed as partisan rhetoric: “There you go again.”
Mr. Ridgel started by asking for a fight (paraphrased as, is President Obama stupid or evil). Then blames the “mainstream” media (which is your phrase for everyone but FOX News) for protecting the President.
Next he spun down to quizzing Mitt Romney about outlawing birth control, as if that”s a ridiculous notion. Apparently he hasn”t been listening to Rick Santorum. If he had his way, according to his surrogate Mr. Friess, the only acceptable birth control is for a woman to keep her legs together.
The next jump nearly gave me whiplash. While Santorum rails against birth control (remember that he thinks pregnancy as a result of rape should not be aborted), Mr. Ridgel falls into the conspiracy theory black hole and says that President Obama started the controversy as a distraction from his poor domestic and foreign policies, going so far as to suggest the White House hand-picked Ms. Fluke as the face of outrage over proposals to de-fund women”s health issues, and yes, that also means birth control.
Government-funded health care, and most private insurance companies pay for Viagra, but many do not pay for contraception. Am I missing something here? Oh, that”s right. Men control most of the government rules and men don”t get pregnant. Slipped my mind.
Hand-picked talking points posing as facts are the most delicious, because they don”t need context. Randy blames the President for failing to close Gitmo as promised, but doesn”t mention that every Republican was against doing so, thus he”s a failure for giving the Republicans what they wanted. And how many years beyond eight must we be involved in an unnecessary, arbitrary and falsely founded war (Iraq) before Mr. Ridgel would not call getting out “cutting and running?” I would invite him, or anyone, to tell me how victory was supposed to look. President Obama landing on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit?
I”m surprised Randy didn”t mention that the President is really Kenyan and a Muslim, but maybe he figures everybody knows that.
Of course, Mr. Ridgel doesn”t mention that joblessness has declined every month for the past year, and that the Dow is higher than any time since 2008. Nope, it”s only about obstructing drilling and gas prices.
Finally, what does Mr. Ridgel really think about our elected leader of the free world and our commander-in-chief? He mentioned him by name four times in his letter. Not once did he refer to him as “President Obama.”
Doug Rhoades
Kelseyville
