Hillary Will Save Us

Having sat through the most boring State of the Union in living memory, I have to say that President Bush’s body language was a lot more interesting than the actual content.

King George just keeps on spinning the same old story and falsehoods, and even the most inbred of his Appalachian evangelical supporters have caught on to his tiresome rhetoric.

The vile Dick Cheney sitting beside Nancy Pelosi looked about as comfortable as Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley doing a love scene in a sequel to Brokeback Mountain. Of course the follow-up interview with Cheney by Wolf Blitzer on CNN shows how shifty and loathsome this very dangerous character is.

However, the future looks promising, and if everyone gets behind Senator Hillary Clinton we will be in good hands. If she happens to eventually pick Senator Barack Obama as her running mate it would be a win-win situation. With the substantial minority, women and general intelligent Democratic vote she will be a shoo-in.

Senator John McCain, although a likeable chap, has taken too many Bushies aboard his ship to help him in his bid for the presidency and now should be firmly discounted. McCain’s one saving grace is his approach on the immigration issue, which should be applauded and supported, but being a one horse candidate is simply not enough. Rudy (fugeddaboudit) Giuliani will have the ghost of Joe Doherty in his corner. He will never get away from the shadow of Bernie Kerik, has been thrice married (once to his cousin) and is generally abrasive, which leaves him somewhere behind Osama bin Laden in the popularity stakes.

This writer will be delighted to see the most incompetent president since the beginning of the union leave office, and not a minute too soon. I wish him well with his new half a billion dollar library which should be stocked with enough coloring books to keep him happy for many a year to come.

Dessie Coogan
Astoria, New York

Quacky Irish

In a letter to the editor in the Jan 3-9 issue, Father Sean McManus voiced his opinion on the Irish being anti-American, laying the problem at the feet of President Bush.

The good father should revisit the events leading up to today. Long before the liberal press began its crusade to dilute the resolve of the American public, the Irish were imitating the proverbial beggar on horseback.

This country gave sanctuary to those starving during the Famine. We allowed them to immigrate en mass until the Irish government became concerned over the brain drain and requested we impose quotas. Citizens of this country supported the Republic in its attempt to redeem the six counties of the north even when it meant going against our British cousins.

Now the Irish have the unmitigated gall to believe they should be allowed to come into this country illegally and be awarded citizenship.

Well Father, this American has reached the end of his tether. My response is if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck it is at best an ungrateful Irish duck!

Jerry Hoosier
Orange, California

Only One Family

I see that letter writer Joseph P. Fanning (“Families of All Kinds,” January 24-30) is back again promoting homosexual marriage as legitimate lifestyle and claiming that the Catholic Church lost its moral authority because some priests sinned against the sixth commandment. This fallacious logic must be confronted.

If some senators or representatives were convicted for violating a U.S. constitutional precept, does that mean the whole U.S. government loses its civil authority to enforce and/or write new laws? The answer is obvious. But obviously not to Mr. Fanning.

The homosexual community is engaged in fallacious logic and ambivalent speech to mislead people to back their disordered cause.

Another false appeal is their attempt to present homosexuality and gay marriage as progressive, forward looking and enlightened. Let me remind Mr. Fanning that homosexuality and its sister disordered behavior of pedophilia was legal and rampant in the pagan Roman Empire over 2,000 years ago. If Mr. Fanning wants to regress instead of progress he can go back to the past, but should not mislead others to follow.

I say, thank God we have the Holy Roman Catholic Church, created by Christ, who has not flinched in defining marital love as between a man and a woman. She has not allowed Johnny-come-latelies of modern day culture to redefine the reality of marital love as anything other than between a man and a woman. That is progressive, not regressive.

The homosexual community and Mr. Fanning should get a grip and realize that what God has designed and put together, let no man pull asunder.

John Rogers
Voorhees, New Jersey

Stop Giving, Bertie

Sunday, January 28 was another “historic” day in Northern Ireland, according to Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Can anybody save us from all the false dawns which these type of days present to us? Yawn.

The thing which caught my attention recently, and which has me scratching the head in wonder, is why Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern joyfully announced he is sending our taxpayers’ money to Northern Ireland “community groups,” and even more to build roads across the border in Co. Derry?

When the roads around Cork City and county are crying out for resurfacing and rebuilding, what with giant bumps and craters the size of graves, it ought not be a priority to provide another jurisdiction with our hard-earned cash.

I think when Bertie gleefully gave Bill Clinton tens of millions of our money to do with what he liked, the spirit of giving that which is not his to give away has taken him over. Talk to him, someone, please.

Robert O’Sullivan
Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland

Policing Mistake

I am deeply troubled over Sinn Fein’s support of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), given the rampant culture of corruption that has permeated policing in Northern Ireland for years.

I would have supported the party’s motion to accept the police, but the publication of Ombudswoman Nuala O’Loan’s report confirming collusion among Loyalist paramilitaries and the police made me think otherwise.

How do we know that collusion has gone away? From what I read, some of the officers who were implicated in the report are still on the force.

I just don’t see how a Catholic in Northern Ireland can accept policing as it currently stands. The old, corrupt RUC underwent a name change to the PSNI, and not much more from what I can see. Catholics will always be looked down upon by these people, and fair policing will take a generation, at least, to take root in the North.

I fail to see how Sinn Fein will guard against the discrimination against Catholics that was part and parcel of the old RUC. I am all in favor of the Good Friday Agreement and seeing the peace process go forward, but there’s no way I would trust the police in the North if I were living there because there is no accountability.

Sinn Fein has conceded so much to keep the process moving. What has Ian Paisley and his party given in return? Zero. Where’s the justice in that?

I think Gerry Adams has made a big mistake here. I hope I’m wrong. What he now needs to do is stay focused on the ultimate goal – that of a united Ireland.

John Conroy
Hartford, Connecticut