William G. Horter – 6/3/08

This page was last updated on June 3, 2008.

I’ll vote as an American; William G. Horter; Beaver County Times; June 3, 2008.

When Mr. Horter isn’t bashing Republicans in general, and President Bush specifically, he tries to push a taxpayer-funded, government-run healthcare system (some examples are here, here, and here) on U.S. citizens.

History also shows you need to do your own due diligence regarding the “facts” Mr. Horter presents in his letters and the comments he posts on the Times website. Here’s just one example.

Along with other letter writers I’ve mentioned, I wish Mr. Horter could get a regular column in the Times.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I listen to the people call in to C-Span frequently, and among the Democrats I’m hearing discord about a ‘black’ and a ‘woman’ vote.”

[RWC] Duh, leftist strategy is all about identity politics. That’s why leftists always group people.

“Just as Barack Obama rails against the red state-blue state stuff, we have to keep remembering we are Americans, and this country is in a real mess. Our troops being killed and wounded in Iraq are not men or women, white or black, Hispanic or Asian; they are American soldiers.”

[RWC] “Barack Obama rails against the red state-blue state stuff?” Isn’t this the same Barack Obama that spoke about people clinging to guns and religion?

“With America’s reputation in the world in such low regard over this war and how we have treated the prisoners taken in this war — Gitmo, torture, water boarding, all of that — huge new debt, high energy prices, a real change has to be made, whoever is the candidate.”

[RWC] Even if I thought our reputation were in low regard, I wouldn’t care. We have to do what we believe is in our best interests without worrying if someone will start or stop liking us. As I’ve written before, our true friends are still our friends and who cares about the rest?

“I do have my favorite. Obama is the only one who has consistently spoken and voted to end the war. Hillary Clinton voted for the war, as did John McCain.”

[RWC] Mr. Horter is not exactly being forthright with us here because he has written many times his “favorite” is Dennis Kucinich. If you read Mr. Horter’s comments on the Times website, you know he blamed the “right-wing, multi-national corporations that control most of the media in the United States today” for knocking candidates like Messrs. Kucinich and Ron Paul from the campaign. Yes, as we read in “Media bias shows” (January 20, 2008) and elsewhere, Mr. Horter believes – or at least tells us he believes – the mainstream media is controlled by the right wing.

Regarding the comment that “Hillary Clinton voted for the war, as did John McCain,” Mr. Horter conveniently skips over the fact Mr. Obama didn’t vote at all because he didn’t become a U.S. senator until over two years after the vote on the Iraq War Resolution.

Though Mr. Obama claims today he would have opposed the Iraq War Resolution, we’ll never know. After all, it’s fair to assume a U.S. senator with a middle name of “Hussein” would have been under great pressure to vote for the resolution, and even another local Obama supporter (Carl Davidson) wrote that Mr. Obama is “a triangulator par excellence” and “a lot of the local [Chicago] antiwar activists started calling him ‘Barack ‘Obomb ‘em’. He wasn’t listening much to us anymore, but to folks much higher up in the DLC [Democrat Leadership Council] orbit. He had bigger plans.”

“But what I hear from McCain is simply more of the same, and I, for one, don’t want any more of this stuff.”

[RWC] Yet Mr. Horter wants Jimmy Carter, Jr.

“So after 50 years of being a Republican, I have changed my party. I am now a Democrat, and I will vote for whomever that party chooses. Not since LBJ’s policies in Vietnam have I been this upset about my government’s policies, and I will not vote as a Democrat or Republican, but as an American — and a hope for change.”

[RWC] If Mr. Horter hasn’t “been this upset about [his] government’s policies” “since LBJ’s policies in Vietnam,” I guess he missed the Carter administration. Do stagflation, gasoline lines, a deteriorating military, the taking of U.S. hostages in Iran, the “Desert One” rescue disaster, giving away the Panama Canal, et cetera ring a bell?

As all endorsements of Mr. Obama I’ve heard/read, Mr. Horter gives us no specifics about what he expects Mr. Obama to do, unless Mr. Horter believes “hope for change” is specific. “[H]ope for change” sounds a lot like closing your eyes and crossing your fingers.

Finally, Mr. Horter’s made this assertion before, but I still get a kick out of his “I am/was a Republican” claims.

“I am now a Democrat?” Excuse me, I can’t stop laughing! Since I started critiquing op-ed pieces in 2004, I’ve critiqued 13 of Mr. Horter’s at least 18 letters to the editor and read his comments on the Times website. Every letter bashed “the right wing,” Republicans – both individuals and in general, and/or conservative principles. All of the positions staked out by Mr. Horter have been leftist, with one exception. Though Mr. Horter and I agreed on illegal aliens, I suspect he adopted his position simply because it was opposite that of President Bush.

If Mr. Horter ever was a “real” Republican – meaning someone who supports conservative principles, it appears he hasn’t been a Republican for a long, long time. When will other Republican impersonators like Messrs. William A. Alexander, Ed “Fellow Republicans” Hum, and George Reese also take the plunge?