‘Everybody else’ blamed
Jake Longoria’s May 21 letter, defending the president, captured the Donald Trump pluses and minuses very well from the point of view of supporters. He wrote Trump’s appeal was his being “non bureaucratic politically incorrect … a non-politician who was making promises.” Then it went downhill and he blamed failures on everybody else: On entertainers who refused to perform for Trump, news organizations, comedians, talking heads, “even members of his own party,” and of course Democrats.
Apparently we are supposed to accept that the purpose of news organizations is to find things to praise about Trump, not report his words and deeds, not point out his bluster, fallacies, and lies. True, it is far easier to find falsehoods since they are abundant, while things to praise are non-existent (not to mention that praising is not the job of reporting.)
As we have seen, Trump blames others for every problem his own words and deeds get him into — even blaming his own staff to save himself. It is always everybody else perpetrating hatred, vulgarity and vilification, never what he says and does. His non-staff supporters, like Mr. Longoria, should worry about how long it will be until he blames them, too.
We have been told not to take Trump literally, so nothing he says matters. We are supposed to gather around whenever he needs to utter words at us and to make ourselves available to be summoned for more of the same the next time. Why should anybody believe that he might keep his promises? Or, a better question, why should anybody want them to be kept, since they unleashed the worst side of all of us? Whatever happened to “personal responsibility” that used to be a Republican mantra?
John Garza, McAllen
Setting history right
Monday’s column by University of Texas at Austin professor Jeremi Suri, “We must better prepare for the next war,” is in error by attributing our long mistaken war in Vietnam to Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. That war was expanded by Presidents John Kennedy and Johnson. President Nixon was elected in part because he promised to end the war, which he did. In 1970, on my way to Danang, I was traveling with Sir Robert Thomas in his jet. Sir Robert was the Liberator of Malaysia and was hired by President Nixon to help us leave Vietnam with a minimum of casualties.
Capt. Paul M. Allen, retired, Mission
‘Over the hill gang’
First we have Eloy Pulido wanting to run for Hidalgo County Judge, again. Now Rene Guerra wants his DA job back. What is this a reunion of the Over The Hill Gang? Can’t they make it on the outside? In my opinion, all we need is Silvia Handy, Omar Guerrerro and Sheriff Lupe Treviño and we will complete our journey back into the dark ages — one we have just started to crawl out of.
Ned Sheats,
Mission
