“Bad arguments prevail if they go unanswered,” therefore I’m compelled to respond to last week’s letter “U.S. Needs Romney/Ryan.” First, it is important to establish the difference between fact and opinion. Facts, supported by hard evidence, by definition cannot be contradicted, as the writer accuses those who disagree with her of attempting to do. To qualify as fact, such statements require evidence to support that they are not mere opinion which is subject to bias. What was requested was the writer’s evidence.
The documentary 2016 suggested for readers to better inform themselves is anti-Obama propaganda using cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes, much from Obama’s autobiographical writing. To learn the entire story, readers would be better served by Obama’s autobiography Dreams From My Father, David Maraniss’ well-researched biography or Richard Wolfs’ two books on the Obama administration.
I’m glad you agree it would be wise for Romney to release past tax returns in keeping with tradition (like his father did), because unless he does, questions of, “What is he hiding?” will persist. I can’t agree with the writer’s comment, “What difference does it make?” because it has already become an issue to a large part of the voting public, including some Republicans.
As for the comment that Obama should release his college transcripts and disclose who paid his tuition and trip to a foreign country as a poor student: If the writer really believes Romney’s tax returns “don’t matter,” why would Obama’s transcripts? It is obviously not an issue of poor grades because we know from the Maraniss biography that Obama maintained a 3.7 GPS at Columbia and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law. You don’t get elected president of the Harvard Law Review with poor grades or other serious transgressions on your record. Who paid Obama’s tuition and travel expenses? His autobiography addresses this with disclosure that Obama was a Fulbright Scholar as well as received other merit-based assistance. According to the book, Obama’s travel to Africa occurred after his student years when he was working in Chicago and New York and had some independent income.
The mention of Romneycare as being “designed for a single state, not a national healthcare takeover” uses inflammatory language and misrepresents the situation. Legislators labored for months, using Romneycare as a guide, to make it feasible as a national program. Romney/Ryan has offered no detailed plan for achieving universal health coverage, just generalities with no hint as to how it can be achieved or paid for.
The writer is right about FactCheck’s confirmation, “We found no evidence to support that Romney, while he was running Bain Capital, shipped American jobs overseas” but neglected to mention the following, also on FactCheck: “There is no question that Bain invested in some companies that helped other companies outsource work and that some of that work went overseas. That was the core business of Modus Media and SMTC Corp — two outsource companies featured in a June 21 article in the Washington Post that has been the basis of recent Obama ads. Bain also invested in U.S.-based companies that sold goods manufactured here and abroad, and some of those companies closed U.S. facilities and eliminated U.S. jobs.”
The real issue with Romney’s job record is, to be fair, one must subtract from jobs created, the number of jobs lost to Americans. Additionally, congressional Republicans have blocked every single jobs bill the president put forth.
The writer also states the Keystone pipeline was “proven environmentally safe.” References, please, because that is not the complete finding of the EPA. Obama is blamed for ending the NASA space program, when reality is it was a policy decision of the Bush administration that was rubber stamped, with the cooperation of the Republican Congress in an effort to cut the federal budget deficit. The decision to pay Russia to ferry our astronauts to the International Space Station is far less than it cost NASA to maintain our program and saves considerable taxpayer money.
“Regain the respect and trust of other nations” is a lie. A Pew poll last week about global attitudes toward Obama as a leader as summarized by CNN: 87 percent of Germans, 86 percent of the French, 80 percent of the British and 74 percent of the Japanese have confidence in Obama. In each case, more confidence than they have in their own leaders. More striking still, 92 percent of the French, 89 percent of the Germans, 73 percent of the British and 66 percent of the Japanese want to see Obama re-elected.
Nancy Tanner
Wellington
