Dishonest 'debate'

It is obvious that the negative protesters at recent town hall meetings are the same folks who campaigned against the election of Barack Obama; they are the angry and wrathful witnesses to his momentous election and the simultaneous loss of their conservative political power. They never will accept the fact that a black man is the president, and their efforts are designed to dislodge him from office.

The posters from the presidential campaign that depicted Mr. Obama as a monkey have morphed into swastika-adorned signs propped on baby strollers and pictures of Mr. Obama with a Hitler mustache. Whether tea-baggers, birthers or angry town hall protesters, they are the same group of disgruntled, out-of-touch-with-reality losers who want to see our president fail even at the risk of undermining national and public interests.

The conservative media manufacture the outrage and put the themes and words into the mouths of their devotees, and then recycle for media consumption the ranting, as if universal public opinion. There is no intellectual honesty, which would permit realistic appraisal of the issues confronting us as a nation. The effort is not just to promote a conservative view; it is to have demagogic effect.

The Republicans have proposed nothing in the way of solutions to the problems confronting this country, and yet they are the first to obstruct proposals and/or distort proposals offered by the Democrats. The intent of all of this is to undermine the efforts of this talented, dedicated president -- to pull him and his administration down, in order to recover the ground they lost through their eight-year history of destructive governance. They want us to forget that they were the architects of unregulated miscreancy and exploding deficits.

No, they have no shame!

HARRIETTE CARLISLE
Shadyside