Letters: Eye on presidential politics

Your editorial's assessment of the upcoming election ["Election can be about big ideas," Aug. 14] only hit the nail half on the head with the statement, "The public should sidestep the dirt and those who shovel it." While this is exactly what the public and the voters, should do, we cannot do it without your help.

From now until Election Day, every serious news outlet must provide its readers or viewers with a thorough fact-check on every claim or accusation made by each campaign, as well as the super PACs and other "independent" players.

We need the media's help sifting through the mountain of noise that passes for news these days. Such a service needs to be frequent and prominent. We should not have to dig hard for such information.

Denis O'Driscoll, Westbury
 

We have a candidate for president who understood the fiscal and moral soundness of making health care accessible to all when he was governor of a liberal state. Now, in choosing Paul Ryan as a running mate, Mitt Romney has made a deal with the very worst sentiments in the United States. Those sentiments are expressed in Ryan's famed budget proposals.

That budget encourages people to turn a blind eye to the plight of others. He couches his beliefs in the cloak of personal responsibility, but in effect that is a cover for the fact that many elderly, chronically or terminally ill people would go bankrupt if Medicare and Medicaid were restructured according to the whims of superrich donors.

Ryan, Romney and people of their ilk, with their personal financial stake in the most powerful industries, will never be able to see this truth. They lecture the rest of us about personal responsibility, but they're not sick, and they're not in danger of defaulting on one of their mortgages. In fact, Ryan seeks to minimize government, and the lifeline it provides to the most vulnerable, even though he took Social Security money for two years after his father died when he was 16.

While we may be woefully unequal to Romney and Ryan in the financial realm, not one of us should have to face bankruptcy if we fall ill.

David DiPadova, Fresh Meadows
 

When Paul Ryan stepped down the stairs in front of the USS Wisconsin to be introduced as Romney's running mate, he appeared straight as an arrow, someone whose every word could be etched in stone. Now we are finding out that the man can talk out of both sides of his mouth.

He claimed that President Barack Obama would cut $716 billion from Medicare. But Ryan's budget, supported by the Republicans in the House, would also cut Medicare.

Then came Ryan's opposition to the president's stimulus bill, and the discovery that Ryan got $20 million in stimulus funds for a nonprofit organization in Wisconsin.

It's really a sad story about such a promising figure.

Frank Geffrard, Central Islip
 

Regarding "In praise of the Boring White Guy" [Opinion, Aug. 12], why is it OK for Newsday to be racist when it comes to white Americans? I am offended.

I dare Newsday to refer to President Barack Obama as "the Boring Black Guy."

John Warren, Smithtown