Guest Editorial

My friend Bob Wilson sent me the following and I asked his permission to print it here. I wish I had written it.

I have reached a point of frustration with the situation, now existing, as it relates to the level of hatred and disrespect afforded our sitting President.  While I don’t always agree with his statements and actions, it seems to me that there are those that don’t seem to know of the name of the Health Care Bill they claim to despise, with a fury.  I have read several documents that refer to the law as the Affordable Health Care Bill, but all I seem to hear from a segment of the community a constant roar against Obama care, which is at the very least an attempt to skirt the content of the law and ask the people to do away with it because our sitting President is being blamed for doing something, his predecessors attempted to do, and by the Grace of God our current President accomplished.

Believing the teachings I received in my 5^th grade civics class was in part the motivation for my joining the United States Marine Corps and serving for 20 years.  I was led to believe that our form of   government was worth defending and in the end it meant a better world for all concerned.  For the duration of that military service I not only defended that concept, but used it as a catalyst to serve the Senate of these United States and the House of Representatives of this country as an aide to 2 elected officials.  I even worked across the aisle with members of the party of individuals who believed differently, but we worked for the common good of all the people.

Never have I been able to explain or understand the level of disrespect shown our sitting President when I look back at those 43 who preceded him.  They refer to him as Obama, when Mr. President, President Obama or Sir might be better used.  The media has taken to question the high rate of black of unemployment and assumed that our current President should have solved it and his record on this issue, which has been discussed over the last 50 years at some length, is at least as good as those who served before him.  He was not elected as a President to solve the black unemployment problem, but the unemployment problem for all Americans.  The method of reporting the facts, used by his administration, seems consistent with the methods and resources used by those who served before him.  The choice he made to prioritize Health Care for all Americans may not have been popular with all Americans, but it was a promise he made and though it had been attempted by previous administrations, he succeeded, and there are those who think it was the wrong decision.  There are many who are elated.

This is a country that until recently was accepting of the voting process that 50% plus 1 was often sufficient to decide an issue and the losers, while not happy, did not act ugly.  Presidential hopeful Senator John McCain, showed a lot of class in 2008 when he showed that depth of his manhood and commitment to fairness when he rebuked one of the people who spoke in a negative manner about the character of President Obama and gave him a huge lift in my respect for him, in addition to the fact that he was already high on a list of politicians, with whom I don’t always agree, but hold in high esteem.

This country is divided along some very contentious lines and not likely to agree on a lot of issues and how to resolve a lot of problems, but when the candidates stoop to the level of making the point something  other than issues and turn it into character assassination and an attack of the very people most in need, I don’t see that as being the American way.  

There is a lot of waste in government, but it begin in the last few years and it won’t be solved within the first few days of whoever is elected in November.  The truth is that this mess is the result of many years when the actions of our elected officials, at all levels, were not rewarded appropriate with their actions.

There is a benefit to seniority in both houses of our Congress and we have allowed it to consume us and at the same time destroy the specifics of what the public was fed as the true intent (all inclusive) of those laws being passed and while there are some restrictions on what individuals can do upon leaving certain areas of government, before moving to other areas influencing government decisions.  At some point it seems that lobbying has become an arm of government, because our elected officials allowed it to happen.

There are 3 branches of government and if we allowed each of them to do their individual jobs, without throwing in the bias of political persuasion, there may at some point be a return to some level of civility.  While these are just my opinions it seems to me that if this is a country of the people, for the people and by the people we would be well served to remember that our diversity is one of the things that makes us unique.  While we differ on many things, I was taught to accept the final vote (even when I didn’t agree).   We should be able to disagree, without being disagreeable.

There are those who will not agree with what I have stated, and that is your right.  I fought for you to have the opinion you choose and that means my opinion counts too.   Let’s work on the common good of all, those we like and those we don’t like, some of these problems were created and supported by those we love and hate.  But we are where we are and we have to move on from here, hopefully without the nastiness.

H. Robert Wilson

USMC Retired

1953-1972