Letters: Obama and Republicans

Re “A deep divide,” Sept. 2

President Obama’s failure at bipartisan leadership is a direct result of Republicans’ success in sinking the ship of state. That members of a major party would jeopardize the nation’s welfare for their own purposes is unthinkable. Moderate Republicans are as rare as dodo birds. They were either killed off by their own or they have gone into hiding until hunting season is over.

Quality leadership cannot succeed without quality follower-ship. Lacking that, Obama’s route is clear: He must fight for his principles. The not-so-loyal opposition will have to survive on its own merits — if it can find any.

Jim Benson

Altadena

The article on Obama’s efforts at “post-partisanship” depicts the president as someone who tried to cross party lines and was thwarted by Republicans.

Obama had big majorities in both houses of Congress for his first two years but did not meaningfully engage Republicans. When confronted with ideas from Republicans, the president’s response was basically, “Elections have consequences, and I won.”

Fair enough, but this is hardly a picture of post-partisanship. When voters overwhelmingly elected Republicans in 2010, giving that party control of the House and nearly the Senate, the president merely reaped what he had sown.

Marc Grossman

Calabasas

One sentence that caught my eye was, “Many Republicans denounce Obama as ‘socialist.’”

Nearly $16 trillion in national debt and trillions in taxes spent on defense, entitlements, pork and much more have gone into our collective pockets for decades. That money has created millions of jobs and an enormous consumer base that has fed big and small businesses alike. No government but ours has put that much money into public hands.

When the money from massive expenditures was trickling down into our pockets, the Republicans in the White House championed our free-enterprise system. Now there are those who call our president a socialist, but they don’t call our country socialistic under their party’s administrations.

Ken Johnson

Pinon Hills

The Democratic National Convention will highlight that the deep divide between Obama and the Republicans is not mere partisanship, as your article suggests. The real divide is between the producer and the parasite.

As Ayn Rand wrote:

“Two world wars, three monstrous dictatorships — in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China — plus every lesser variant of devastating socialist experimentation in a global spread of brutality and despair have not prompted modern intellectuals to question or revise their dogma. They still think that it is daring, idealistic and unconventional to denounce the rich. They still believe that money is the root of all evil — except government money, which is the solution to all problems.”

Ray Shelton

Glendale

I hope the president takes a page from Harry Truman’s book: From now on, he should be known as “Give ‘em hell Barry.”

Ray Sherman

Duarte

Re “This week, Obama must fight back,” Editorial, Sept. 3

It’s interesting that your editorial didn’t mention the elephant in the room: the nearly $16-trillion national debt, almost $6 trillion of which has been amassed in the 31/2 years of Obama’s administration.

I suppose it’s not easy to admit what should be obvious: that Obama isn’t qualified to be the chief executive of this country.

Marcus C. Kourtjian

Northridge

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