John Boehner on President Obama; charges against protesters in L.A.; and the curse of stuttering

Obama and the speaker

Re “The tongue-tied speaker,” Editorial, Feb. 15

House Speaker John A. Boehner’s adamant choice of silence as a response to accusations that President Obama is not an American makes him complicit in nothing short of perpetuating slander against the presidency. His rationalization that confronting constituents with the facts means telling people what to “think” is vacuous.

At least Sen. John McCain had the guts and decency to speak the truth when the opportunity presented itself.

It’s pathetically obvious that like the rest of Boehner’s Fox “news” pandering Republican colleagues, if there is political gain, he will dignify the most fantastic of lies with his silence. How American is that, Mr. Speaker?

Wendy Blais

North Hills

Boehner wasn’t tongue-tied but shocked by the question related to doubts concerning Obama’s birthplace and religious choice.

Boehner’s answer was honest. He doesn’t share those doubts, but everyone is free to think as they please, and it’s not his right or duty to dictate their thoughts.

There’s no active public discussion of these subjects, so why ask the question? Was it to distract from the real news of the day, the ever-growing budget deficit?

What more would you have from Boehner than his personal acceptance of Obama’s statements?

Why were then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid not asked to rebut the claim by many of their adherents that the Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks?

Charles K. Sergis

Redondo Beach

So Boehner says, “It’s not my responsibility to tell the American people what to think.” Then it’s OK for us to think that he has no integrity or sense of

responsibility or interest in being a leader, right?

Then, if many of us believe that he leads a party desiring only to defeat a president and not to pass legislation helping us, that’s all right too?

Of course, the larger issue of what people do with their beliefs — hate and be bigots, for example — is fine too, isn’t it, Mr. Speaker?

Dan Aaron

Westminster

We conservatives don’t pay much attention to where the president was born or his religion, but when leftist journalists on television and in newspapers constantly badger our leaders to denounce those who do, they give credence to the probability that the charges may have merit.

It’s the president’s policies, not his birthplace or religion, that are causes for concern.

Robert S. Rodgers

Culver City

Protesters and the law

Re “Not fit to be tried,” Opinion, Feb. 12

On the issue of charging protesters, the question is not whether a protest is “extreme and intemperate” in tone but whether it seeks to disrupt and prevent the act of another citizen’s speech (such as disrupting the UC Irvine speech) or block freedom of movement.

Protesters who demonstrate in this way are accepting the consequences of their civil disobedience for their cause, and those consequences include criminal charges and possibly jail.

Otherwise, what is stopping anyone from doing this all the time, if the only repercussions are receiving the equivalent of a traffic ticket?

Richard Elias

Thousand Oaks

It frankly is difficult to fathom that our city attorney is unable to reason that it is not in the best interest of this community that peaceful activists serve time in jail.

It is absurd that given L.A.’s fiscal situation, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich still wants to incarcerate peaceful activists who stood in solidarity with the immigrant community last year. It is also equally absurd that he argues that these activists are “professional anarchists.”

L.A. desperately needs people to get more civically engaged, and criminalizing dissent will discourage citizens from voicing their concerns.

Salvador Sanchez

Los Angeles

Thank goodness for Trutanich. It’s about time we had a city attorney with enough backbone to prosecute protestors who break the law.

Freedom of speech doesn’t give anyone the right to ignore the law.

Sandra Wilson

Venice

Building a better Middle East

Re “Tide of revolt sweeps Mideast,” Feb. 15

Hats off to the Arab public for having the strength and wisdom to shake off their various dictators. Hopefully they’ll have the same strength and wisdom to shake off these tyrants’ deflection of hatred onto the tiny dot of land called Israel.

Isn’t it time now to start building a future instead of wasting time, energy and resources to try to annihilate a country that could be your partner in building that future? Or is baseless bigotry better than bread and butter?

Klara Shandling

Los Angeles

The United States needs to completely stay out of Iranian affairs. Any statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or President Obama will be used as a pretext to round up (and possibly execute) protesters as agents of the United States.

Hirbod Rashidi

Los Angeles

Open is better

Re “A dependency court cure,” Editorial, Feb. 12

The Times is right to support a bill by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) seeking greater transparency for foster-care dependency proceedings. You can’t appeal to the public to support systemic reform or increased resources while keeping the same public ignorant about how the system actually operates.

Government reform campaigns, like all political campaigns, don’t succeed by keeping the public uninformed. If you think that our foster-care system is doing right by these kids, then by all means oppose letting the taxpaying public get a glimpse into how it actually works.

But if you think that our foster-care system is failing children, then it is time to try honestly engaging the public, who are legally and morally the parents of foster children, in their cause.

Ed Howard

Carmichael, Calif.

The writer is senior counsel to the University of San Diego School of Law’s Children’s Advocacy Institute.

Swearing by it

Re “Stuttering: It’s on everyone’s lips now,” Opinion, Feb. 11

It probably will not come as a surprise to Michael Palin, whose stuttering father “had a short fuse,” but there’s one area of pronunciation that some stutterers can handle with colorful precision: swearing. Take it from one whose stuttering symptom has occurred at a ripe old age because of Parkinson’s disease: Frustration will drive a stutterer to sound like a Shakespearean when trumpeting profanities.

Palin knows his onions when he writes about the ordeal facing a stutterer who tries to tell a joke.

In the last joke I ever

attempted, I intended to open with “a rabbi, a priest and a minister walked into a bar,” but I never got past that first syllable of “rabbi.”

Maybe I failed because Parkinson’s, with no known cure, is no joke.

Dan Bagott

Encino

Cable static

Re “Getting Time Warner Cable to repent,” Business, Feb. 15

David Lazarus’ column illustrates why I no longer subscribe to Time Warner or any other cable company. After being over-charged and subjected to a total lack of customer service, we got rid of cable once and for all.

This story about the priests being billed as commercial customers is a prime example of the outrageous practices of the cable industry in general.

Ellie Doud

Sherman Oaks

Dead issue

Re “Chemical cremation bill gets a 2nd look,” Feb. 14

With all of the truly overwhelming problems in California, why is Assemblyman Jim Miller (R-Corona) using time and energy to solve a non-problem under the guise of “green” concerns? Why busy himself and the rest of California’s legislators on matters related to the dead when there are so many crucial issues related to the living?

Jean Hayes

Upland