To the editor
By:
Hugh Brennan raises an interesting question in his letter in the May 20 issue of the Beacon: Should a local weekly newspaper address national issues in its editorial cartoons (or any other content), or should it stick to local news only?
Because some people read only local papers, I believe the Beacon should cover matters of national interest, particularly in the editorial pages. Supporting his argument to the contrary, Mr. Brennan offers his thoughts about the appropriateness of including "anti-Bush" cartoons.
What he refers to as "abusing the president" is not abuse. It is free speech. Every president, Democrat and Republican, is caricatured and criticized by editorial cartoonists. Sometimes they make profound points; sometimes they take cheap or worse, uninformed shots that do nothing to further the public’s ability to understand the issues. But that’s the price of a free press.
What the letter reveals, however, is less concern about the concept of printing national content than about the concept of criticizing President Bush. Many Americans feel that questioning our elected leaders is unpatriotic especially when the people they voted for are in office. In truth, it is unpatriotic not to question them, whatever party they belong to.
The bonus thesis of Mr. Brennan’s exercising of his free speech is that the Democrats who ran our country from 1992-2000 were children, when he says that in wartime "it is comforting to have the adults in charge."
This comment is doubly ironic, both in its "abuse" of former President Clinton evidently, it’s OK to belittle Democrats and the omission that if it weren’t for the childlike behavior of President "Bring ’em on" Bush, we wouldn’t be in wartime. (As it is, the U.S. overwhelmed Iraq in the invasion with the military that was built in the Clinton administration.)
How "adult" was it of Bush’s administration to ignore an August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack In the U.S.," and warning of hijackings, just because its author was a holdover from the Clinton team?
Was it adult behavior to lie to the American public about Iraq’s threat and terrorism ties, and put our people in harm’s way, for some unrealistic crusade of reshaping the Middle East? Was it adult to plan an invasion without a plan to stabilize the country afterward?
Is it adult of Bush to go on vacation constantly (he was mountain biking in Texas this past weekend), when our good soldiers have had their tours extended for months?
If these are the adults, maybe we should bring back the children.
These national issues directly affect us and the real children right here in Hillsborough, N.J.
Our children, and their children, and maybe their children, will be paying for the rash decisions of the Bush administration for decades in a number of ways lives of good people lost and ruined; our global reputation shattered; and well more than $100 billion wasted, spent by the president like a spoiled rich kid who’s blowing his trust fund.
It’s important that we all understand these issues. The Beacon should continue making us all better citizens by stimulating political debate, through editorial cartoons and otherwise.
Hillsborough