The media can't be blamed for the Bush debacle

Regarding "Obama Should Get the Fair Shake Bush Didn't" (Nov. 25) by Jackie Rocco of Monroeville: Give me a break. It's the mainstream media's fault that we are in a depression? Where have you been? President Bush's whole eight years have been a disaster -- from him sitting in a classroom for seven minutes after we had been attacked, looking like a deer caught in the headlights, to his crazy announcement that we were going to spend $12 billion to go to Mars. Add to that the stunt on an aircraft carrier with the "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background; meanwhile we are still losing young men and women, more than five years later.

Should we mention the illegal war in which we could have bought every man, woman and child a $268,000 Lamborghini with the money we've spent in Iraq already? We've spent $10 billion a month in Iraq, which was supposed to pay for itself. No, Ms. Rocco, the media did not make one decision that has put us in the worst times since the Great Depression. Name one thing that "W" has done that has been good for America. You can't do it.

He will be remembered for fear and lies. Also, the corruption in his administration wasn't the media's fault. I don't know where you have been, but you should look around and put the blame squarely where it belongs, on George W. Bush's shoulders.

GARY RYAN
Murrysville

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About North Korea

The new administration will inherit a troubled relationship with North Korea spanning six decades. U.S. officials forever argue over whether to deal with North Korea more sternly or show continued restraint. Both approaches demonstrate a fundamental failure to understand North Koreans.

At one end of the spectrum is the return to the policy of threats and confrontation, which has repeatedly resulted in diplomatic resistance and escalation of conflict. At the other end of the spectrum sits appeasement, which merely allows the United States to be taken advantage of. Contrary to conventional wisdom, North Koreans are logical thinkers who argue toe to toe on issues but respond positively to clearly defined proposals delivered in a spirit of cooperation.

One of the most productive strategic initiatives Barack Obama could propose as president is to immediately establish a U.S. liaison office in Pyongyang. Of course tactically, it could help coordinate U.S. matters, relating to the nuclear shutdown in North Korea, but the primary reason, which should be communicated to North Korea and announced to the world, is to help improve relations between our two countries. The truth is Americans are as ignorant of North Koreans as they are of us.

This would be a bold move guaranteeing a positive reciprocation by the North that would afford the administration great leverage in dealing with North Korea over the next four years. President-elect Obama could decisively answer the question of whether his administration will pursue the opportunity to produce substantive diplomatic progress or continue missing the chance for improvement through cultural ignorance.

RICHARD SACCONE
Latrobe

The writer teaches international relations and political science at St. Vincent College. He has lived and worked in both North and South Korea and has written seven books on Korea.

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Joe the stand-up guy

Your Nov. 8 editorial makes Joe the Plumber sound like three dirty words ("Plumb Broke: Joe's Celebrity Runs Its Political Course"). You make him out to be an ogre.

I'd invite Joe the Plumber to my house anytime, license or no license, to fix a leaky water pipe.

And then I'd ask him to stay for coffee to discuss his views on spreading the wealth.

Your piece was a knock-down, pile-on of a stand-up guy. Any athletic official would have thrown the flag.

Shame on you.

SHIRLEY O. PRESTON
New Castle

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New parents group

The Nov. 26 article "Modern Moms Group Folds" said "the moms who attended its play dates and events are upset" about the group disbanding. I am one of more than 300 members and I am not upset.

The article quoted a new Modern Moms member as saying that the group disbanding is a loss. It didn't clarify that there isn't a loss because a new group, on the same site, with the same organizers, members, events and format, has been started. All that really happened was the group changed names. A new name was needed because of the prior nonprofit status of "Modern Moms."

Also, the new group, "Burgh's Forever Friends," will not charge dues for the first six months to help mitigate some of the $2 monthly fees previously paid.

It's obvious that a lot of hard work, selflessness and dedication went into creating a group that grew to more than 300 members in less than two years. It's a pretty amazing accomplishment. Why not focus on that? It seems like instead this was nothing more than a forum to plug the Post-Gazette's Pittsburgh Moms group.

Modern Moms of Pittsburgh has been a wonderful resource and outlet for us, and now Burgh's Forever Friends will follow. Maybe we could see a follow-up story on how much this new group has to offer to parents of Pittsburgh and the amazing people who created it.

JOELLE SCHULTZ
Mt. Lebanon

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District decisions

The Nov. 25 editorial "Class Action" refers to increased payments the district faces for charter schools and bus transportation as if these cost increases had nothing to do with actions of the district itself.

However, charter school costs would not have increased by almost 30 percent if the number of families choosing charter over public schools had not significantly increased, and rising bus transportation costs likely have something to do with the closing of nearby schools.

As to the "shuttering of Schenley High School," this is disappointing news that would not have had to be delivered if disappointing and unpopular budget choices (such as $30 million over six years for the services of Community Education Partners) had not been made.

"No new taxes" is good, but to retain middle-class families (and reduce the need to deliver disappointing news about drops in enrollment) it will be necessary for the district to pay greater attention to public preferences when making budgetary choices.

ANNETTE WERNER
Shadyside

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A truer measure

I take issue with Elise Power regarding her Nov. 25 letter "Unfair Grading" and with all preceding letters of the same ilk regarding the grading policy in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Suppose a student receives a zero on test No. 1 and a 100 on test No. 2. Ms. Power would agree that the student's average of 50 for the two tests, a failing grade, is fair.

Now consider what happens if the student is awarded 50 for a blank test paper on test No. 1 and a 100 on test No. 2. Under this system the student has an average of 75, an average grade. The 75 more accurately describes the student's performance.

THOMAS J. KELANIC
Wilkins

The writer is a retired high school math teacher.

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Obama didn't get my vote, but he has my respect

I am a conservative, but I am proud of my country for electing an African-American president. I did not vote for him because of his pro-abortion stance, and I fear he will greatly weaken the military in these very dangerous times. I can still advocate for the right to life and still respect Mr. Obama as president.

There is a paradox here: How can a conservative Republican congratulate his country for electing a man with such opposite values from my own? Well, that's what we do in America. My 22 years in the Navy taught me that veterans' sacrifices are meant to preserve our nation's Constitution whether or not we agree with an election outcome.

Nevertheless, President-elect Obama is my president, too, and I respect him and his office and admire his beautiful family. May God bless him and may his administration be beneficial for the country.

PAUL E. FRANCIS
McCandless

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We receive more letters than we can fit into the limited space on the editorial page, so we'd like to share some additional letters with our Post-Gazette Web site readers.

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We are punished because of their greed and overspending

How can we expect the politicians in D.C. to get us out of this awful economic collapse, when it is they, Democrats and Republicans, who assured it would happen?

The mindless constant overspending and the mistaken Keynesian belief that debt is healthy have put us in the state we are in today. We listened to the wrong people, Alan Greenspan, et al., and have not called Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank and others in Congress to account for their oversight failures. We overspent because we are in a culture of instant gratification and greed. We re-elected Robert Byrd and John Murtha and anyone who would "get money for our district." We lost sight of what this was doing to the nation. Now the harm is done and millions of retired people like myself have seen a huge portion of our life savings disappear and we are forced into a lower living standard.

I never overspent and kept within my budget. Why should Congress not be forced to do the same? Nobody rescued my small business when tough times came, and I certainly did not get a multimillion-dollar bonus or paycheck for incompetent performance.

Never again will I trust American business or the stock market or financial gurus. The lies about earnings, crooked accounting and poor business decisions should earn these CEOs a jail sentence or confiscation of their pay and assets instead of bonuses and a taxpayer-extorted rescue. I wonder how much money could be put toward the rescue of Citibank and others if the assets of its top executives, who caused the company problems, were confiscated and turned over to the rescue fund. Let's see these guys hurt for a change.

ROBERT C. MORRISON
Greensburg

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Tough conditions should be placed on this money

Where is the tough dialogue that should be going on over these bailouts? These companies wouldn't give you or me a dime without demanding an arm, a leg and our firstborn. They don't respect any other approach to "doing business," so now is the time to get tough.

Bail out Wall Street? Yes, sir, we the taxpayers will be glad to lend you that money on three conditions. First, you give us an ownership stake in the company and two permanent seats on the board; second, the interest rate on our money is the same as the current highest credit card rate effective in the United States (after all, fair is fair, sauce for the goose, etc.); third, if at any time in the future your firm is found guilty of a Securities and Exchange Commission violation, your CEO and nongovernment-appointed members of your board of directors must immediately resign and will be banned from the financial services industry and government service for life. If that is all OK with with you, sign here ?

Bail out the car companies? Yes, sir, we the taxpayers will be glad to lend you that money on four conditions. First, within 10 years we want cars that burn inexpensive, nonpolluting fuels or "burn" nothing at all; second, we want all cars to be guaranteed to last 25 years; third, we want an immediate ownership stake in the company and two permanent seats on the board; and fourth, if at any time in the future your firm is found guilty of violating any applicable federal regulation, your CEO and the entire nongovernment-appointed members of your board must immediately resign and will be banned from the transportation industry and government service for life (and yes, inventing a new class of "light truck" to avoid automobile safety regulations does count as a violation). If that is all OK with you, sign here ?

You get the idea. Now is the time to kick some butt or let these people go find other work.

DON MERZ
Mt. Lebanon

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The rest of us are looking forward to competence

One week to the day after Barack Obama was elected in an electoral landslide, we had not one, but two letters in the PG made up entirely of Rush Limbaugh talking points.

In the first ("Unhappily, I'm Willing to Give Obama a Chance," Nov. 11), Robert C. Faulkner Jr. is gracious enough to inform us mere mortals of his superiority, writing that, as a "Reagan conservative," he is "head and shoulders above any liberal Democrat." I didn't personally take offense, because this is how most conservatives I know feel about the rest of us dirty liberals.

In the second ("Welcome to Socialism"), Victor K. Hreczkosiej runs down a laundry list of unsubstantiated and specious, not to mention ridiculous, attacks against the President-elect that would make Joe McCarthy blush.

The icing on Mr. Hreczkosiej's double-layer paranoia cake, however, is his statement that Democrats in Congress engineered the current economic crisis in order to get Mr. Obama elected. Blame whomever you want for the Republicans' failure in this election, Mr. Hreczkosiej, but that claim is so stupid that it borders on the bizarre.

The majority of Americans have rejected the right's attempts to discredit Mr. Obama with unfounded attacks, smears and guilt by association. We are looking forward now, to living in a country whose government is transparent and answers to "We the People" rather than cloaking itself in secrecy and brushing aside the democratic will of its citizens with signing statements.

Messrs. Faulkner and Hreczkosiej, you say you'll respect the office if not the officeholder, but what is written between the lines is that you want, more than anything else, to see Mr. Obama fail, so that you can tell us how you told us so. In the meantime, while President Obama (yes, we know you can't stomach the sound of it) and the rest of us roll up our sleeves to help get this country back on track, you can just stick your head back into the sand that is Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh show. You won't be missing anything except seeing America transformed by hope, democratic ideals and, best of all, something that's been missing from the Oval Office for nearly eight years: competence.

DAVID HARTZ
Connellsville

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Bush's appalling record

I have seen several complaints recently about Barack Obama winning the election -- examples, Robert C. Faulkner Jr. and Victor K. Hreczkosiej (Nov. 11 letters).

It is quite impossible for Barack Obama to do worse than the appalling record of the Bush administration. Consider the following partial list:

• an unnecessary, illegal, unjustified, very expensive war with no end;

• alienation of practically every other country on the planet;

• ignoring global warming until the last moment, when it may be far too late;

• deliberate selection and distortion of intelligence facts -- WMDs in Iraq etc.;

• deliberate selection and distortion of scientific facts -- global warming etc.;

• invasion of privacy of the general public by surveillance and spying;

• prison camps deliberately located to try to avoid American laws;

• bending the laws to try to justify torture;

• sending prisoners to countries where torture is allowed -- extreme rendition;

• a shattered economy, due to the expense of the war, and the unregulated greed of big business.

We, Democrats and liberals (no, that is not a dirty word) have had to suffer for eight years while this sort of thing has been going on. I can forgive a person for voting Republican in 2000, when they had not emerged in their real colors, but not in 2004, and still less in 2008. It is going to be a pleasure to have as president a man who is a real intellectual (no, that is not another dirty word), instead of a spoiled frat boy who has always been cocooned in money.

So it's time for you Republicans to live under a government that you don't like. Stop whining. Live with it. Get used to it. We had to. Your turn.

BILL GALBRAITH
North Point Breeze

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I'll second that

What a great letter by Jackie Rocco ("Obama Should Get the Fair Shake Bush Didn't," Nov. 25). Since that letter was pure perfection, there's not much one could add to it except to tell the American people to wake up and realize it was the Democrats who had control of Congress when our economy went south. The president does not make laws, Congress does!

I wish the American voters would research the candidates before they go out and pull the lever!

On one other note, Americans, grow up! Voting against an African American has nothing to do with the color of his skin and more about where he stands on the issues!

CAROL CZAPIK
Castle Shannon

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Bush still has time to do damage

I think that although it is an important thing to look toward the bright new future, we must realize that the dark past is still here for a couple of months. President Bush, now a lame duck, no longer has any reason to restrain himself. Already he has received the most requests for clemency than any other president. That is not to say that he will grant them, but what else will he do now that he no longer has any motive to even try to appear as a "good" person?

What will he do internationally that could hurt Barack Obama's administration, and how will he mess with the economy to make it worse than ever? These are the important questions that we as a people and you as the media must be looking for and answering in this time of national crisis and change.

MICHAEL SINKO
Mars

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About intellectuals running the show

Some recent letter writers have gushed over the supposed intellect and educational qualifications of our new president. One of the writers was absolutely giddy about the prospect of finally having an intellectual in the White House. Actually, I am not sure how to define the concept of "intellectual."

If a college degree is a qualification for being president, then we would not have had Washington, Jackson or Lincoln, among others, as presidents. I think William F. Buckley's comment is more appropriate now than ever before, that if he had to choose the people to run the new government, he would be more comfortable with the first 2,000 names in the Boston phonebook than the entire Harvard faculty.

JIM CANNON
Mt. Lebanon

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