Finally! (with reservations)

 

 

      I submitted this last Thursday to the Villages Daily Sun, our "news" paper in the Villages. All editorials are from the extreme right, featuring the likes of  Ann Coulter, Oliver North, Thomas Sowell, and others all far right, three of them persons of color, who are probably, along with Clarence Thomas, the smallest minority in America if you discount wheelchair bound lesbian Eskimos with 11 toes. I didn't expect the paper to run the letter, but they did, after carefully editing the last little bit which I will show you at the end of the post.

"A  column entitled"Obama Governs United States like Banana Republic Dictator" is certain to grab one's attention. What heinous act could precipitate such a scathing headline? As it turns out, the column was written by the aged (ed. note: he's 83) African American ultra- conservative, Thomas Sowell and ran in Thursday's edition of the Daily Sun.  Sowell's academic credentials are impeccable,which, makes his point of view and lack of veracity in this case much more troublesome. 

The focus of the column is the use by President Obama of  Executive Orders, which Sowell implies are unconstitutional  and enable the president to run and "end-around" on Congress. He complains about several  Executive Orders he doesn't like and, for good measure throws in the Affordable Health Care Act  which, in true far right style, he calls Obamacare, even though it was passed by a majority of Congress and is a law, not an Executive Order. He finishes the tirade with a slam at the US Supreme Courtwhich he laments will "rubber stamp anything he does and give him a 5-4 majority." 

The problem here is that Sowell hasn't done his homework.Using the number of Executive Orders (issued by The President to date) and extrapolating to the end of his current term, President Obama will have issued far fewer (and most far less controversial)  than  Presidents Reagan and Clinton and significantly fewer than President G.W. Bush.  The issue grows murkier when one factors in that the Reagan administration actually did support several  "Banana  Republic Dictators," including El Salvador's brutal regime (yeah, the one that jails any woman who has had an abortion for any reason, with the express connivance of the Church!) 

 Apparently it isn'treally the use of Executive Orders,  but the subject matter, that troubles Sowell.

Here is where they cut it. below is the rest of it:

  "It is disappointing that the Daily Sun runs columns by three persons of color, all of whom are ultra conservative and yet can't seem to find space for opposing points of view on the Op-Ed page for the likes of a Eugene  Robinson, Brent Staples, Leonard Pitts or Mary Mitchell. This community would be better served by at least an illusion of a level playing field on the op-ed page." 

Oh well... half a loaf, etc.