Opinion: President Trump, you are no Boy Scout

To the editor: Trump’s next tweet? I sincerely apologize for my words and demeanor at the National Scout Jamboree. (Re “ Trump’s speech to youths stirs ire,” July 26)

By not supporting and inspiring these boys and their families in their efforts to make this country a better place, as President I failed to reflect the Scout Law values of kindness and courtesy.

Sometimes I just don’t know what comes over me. Next year, trust me, I will stay on script. And no profanity.

Yea, right. When pigs fly.

Cathy Regan, Carlsbad

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To the editor: As an Eagle Scout (1976), I was sickened by the events that occurred at the National Jamboree.

A president should be a role model for young men. The BSA has been dragged into the gutter by the unfit man who occupies the highest office in the land.

The behavior of the crowd was shameful, and this event needs to be used as a teaching point to combat mob hysteria that is frighteningly reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s.

Dale Maguire, Palm Springs

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To the editor: So our Egotist-in-Chief, apoplectic over his abysmal public opinion ratings, covers himself with kisses and takes potshots at his many foes in an unabashed bid to prop himself up before an audience of Boy Scouts and their families. I shudder to think how low this dysfunctional man will go.

I can only pray our country comes out of his term of office bruised but hopefully better equipped to evaluate candidates and protect our democratic system against ignorance, bullying and cyber-assault by forces eager to destroy it.

Barbara Pronin, Placentia

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To the editor: As an ex-Boy Scout, I was stunned. Was this a speech before the Boy Scouts of America or before an alt-right rally?

Trump’s attack on a constitutionally protected American institution, the press, as “dishonest people”; his calling our nation’s capital “a cesspool” and “a sewer”; and, most of all, his attacks on a former president of the United States — all were grievously out of line for an occasion intended to inspire Scouts to the highest values of Scouting and America.

But even more shocking to me were responses from Scouts in the crowd, their enthusiasm and applause for Trump’s right-wing rants and their disrespectful, hearty boos directed at President Obama.

What is happening to the soul of the Boy Scouts of America?

Jerry Small, Venice

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To the editor: I am an Eagle Scout. I believed, then and now, in the ideals of the Boy Scouts, so I find it appalling that President Trump used a major Boy Scouts of America event as a backdrop for a partisan, rancorous political speech.

I was on the 1973 National Jamboree Staff, when Bob Hope was the key speaker. He cracked many jokes, even pertaining to Richard Nixon, but the theme of his remarks was to make all of us proud to be members of the Boy Scouts.

The concepts in the Scout Law refer to positive personality attributes apparently foreign to President Trump. No surprise that he stopped at Loyalty, as the subsequent words include Helpful, Courteous, Kind, Brave, Clean and Reverent.

Jerry Sinclair, Santa Monica

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To the editor: During the presidential campaign, the Rev. Faith Green Timmons of the Bethel United Methodist Church had the courage and leadership to interrupt then-candidate Trump when he began his wholly inappropriate attacks on his then-rival Hillary Clinton in her church when the subject at hand was the Flint water crisis.

When now-President Trump began his wholly inappropriate attacks on his now-former rival Hillary Clinton in his speech at the Boy Scout National Jamboree, not one adult member of the Scouts exhibited any courage or leadership to do the same.

The values that our youths should strive for are better found in a female pastor of a small church in Michigan than in a national organization that claims a motto of being prepared to do your duty.

Donald Bentley, La Puente

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