Letters to the editor
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Obama seems to value 'smart' over 'ethical'
Regarding your Jan. 26 editorial "Ethics and Transparency: The People's Principles Return to the White House": You have to be kidding. The enormous gulf between President Barack Obama's rhetoric on ethics and his actions to date gives new meaning to the word hypocrisy.
Take Mr. Obama's promotion of a tax cheat, Timothy Geithner, to treasury secretary. Even though this guy regularly received notices from the International Monetary Fund informing him that taxes were due, he not only failed to pay the taxes but also cashed the tax reimbursement checks that were sent with the notices.
Then, you have Eric Holder's nomination for attorney general. He engineered the pardon of a notorious fugitive, Marc Rich, who had fled this country with millions of dollars, only to wait out a presidential pardon. So much for respect for the rule of law.
Then, there's Hillary Clinton's blatant conflicts of interest involving millions of dollars in donations to her husband's foundation from foreign governments with whom Mrs. Clinton will be dealing as secretary of state. Such conflicts of interest are the very kind of ethics violations that lawyers get disbarred for in the real world.
So much for the people's principles. I guess the new standard of the Obama administration is it is more important for a Cabinet official to be "smart" than ethical.
So, please don't insult our intelligence by touting the ethical standards of Mr. Obama, who hails from that ethical bastion of Chicago and its notorious street politics. We're not buying it. When is the PG going to hold this president to the same level of scrutiny/accountability that it lavished on our last president? (Oh, that's right, there was an "R" next to his name.)
SANDY LANNIS
Squirrel Hill
Doing what's right
In the Jan. 23 letter "Mr. Obama, Without Safety We Have Nothing," a reader worried whether President Barack Obama's plans to close Guantanamo and the CIA's "secret" prisons would weaken security. This question could be argued both ways, but it misses the real point.
Like many Americans, I believe that torture is morally wrong and fundamentally un-American. Recall that more than 200 years ago, the authors of the Bill of Rights forbade "cruel and unusual" punishment and more than 60 years ago, the United States endorsed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."
I believe the claim that "enhanced interrogation" methods exist -- methods that are somehow cruel and degrading enough to force information out of hardened terrorists, but not quite brutal enough to be called "torture" -- is just deceptive wordplay.
I know that if an action is morally wrong, it doesn't become right just because it becomes expedient. Nor does it become right just because you are frightened for your own safety -- nor even if you are frightened for the safety of your loved ones, your countrymen or others whom you love and hope to protect.
Someday, the United States has to set aside the fright and terror it fell prey to after 9/11 and return to doing what we all know to be morally right. I applaud our new president for taking the first steps in this direction.
WILLIAM W. COHEN
Point Breeze
What a waste
Welcome to the "do as I say, not as I do" administration. Barack "it's good to spread the wealth" Obama, and his sycophant sidekick, Joe "time to be patriotic and pay more taxes" Biden, had no problem throwing themselves a party of perverse proportions during what they have both termed as the "worst economic time since the Great Depression."
These two hypocrites have shown absolutely no remorse about spending an estimated $170 million, according to ABC News, to celebrate the coronation of the savior. The fact that a large portion of the money was donated or was for security has no relevance. Wouldn't it have been great to see the new president take $150 million of that money and "spread it around" to the Salvation Army or juvenile cancer research or to the less fortunate people he referenced so often during his campaign? I'm referring to the same people he has no problem raising our taxes to support.
If Mr. Obama were truly a man of the people, an extravaganza of such proportions would have appalled him. But he is what those of us who chose not to vote for him knew he was all along -- an arrogant, empty suit with no qualifications to be leader of the free world. God save the republic.
JOE BENZ
North Huntingdon
Frightful first week
After all the crying, praising, fawning and practically falling all over themselves for President Barack Obama, let's take a look at what the media's hero did in just his first week in office.
With the country trillions of dollars in debt, and ready to go a near trillion further into debt when Congress passes a stimulus package, President Obama freezes the salaries of about 120 employees of his administration making more than $100,000 a year -- an act akin to throwing a glass of water on a blazing inferno -- telling them this is what's expected of them, one day after an inauguration that reportedly cost $160 million or more! (I guess it's not expected of him to save money.)
Then with another stroke of his pen he's closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, being more concerned about the rights of enemy combatants trying to kill us than for the safety of the American people he vowed to protect!
Finally, and most disgustingly, with total disregard for the rights of the defenseless unborn child, he reverses a previous order signed by President Bush and allows our hard-earned tax dollars to be sent to foreign countries so they can kill poor helpless babies!
Amazing! Frightening! And extremely tragic!
DANIEL C. MAHON
Bloomfield
Can the poets
After watching a day's worth of inauguration events last week, I came away with one conclusion: Not so much as one dollar of taxpayer money should fund any poet, ever.
PATTI MARINO
Churchill
Don't overlook this Hazelwood asset
I was disappointed that the Jan. 4 article "Hazelwood Hopes to Reshape Its Community Despite Blows" failed to acknowledge the presence of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh as part of Hazelwood's proud tradition and, perhaps more important, its present and future development.
Since relocating to its current location on Second Avenue in April 2004, the library's circulation and customer visits have demonstrated yearly increases, as much as 34 percent. When the library's hours were increased in 2007 to a five-day-a-week schedule, there was a concomitant spike in usage. Nearly 60,000 customers visited the library in 2008, demonstrating a 14 percent increase compared with 2007.
In 2008, the Hazelwood library provided free quality programs to approximately 5,000 children and teens, including KinderPrep, a systemwide kindergarten preparatory program presented to more than 550 preschool children. We can proudly state that children and teen program attendance at Hazelwood competes with attendance figures at some of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's larger branches.
As a community anchor, the library maintains integral relationships with the YMCA summer programs, Head Start and community public and parochial schools. The Hazelwood library's innovative "It's Real" program for teen mothers and their children is held in two Pittsburgh high schools and was submitted to the Pennsylvania Library Association as a 2009 Best Practice in the category of "Programs for 'At Risk' or Underserved Children and Families."
As leaders and residents envision and shape the future of this diverse and impressively resilient community, they should pause to acknowledge the significant role played by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, not only in Hazelwood's history but also in its revitalization.
MARY ANN McHARG
Branch Manager
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Hazelwood
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First Published January 30, 2009 12:00 am
