Public financing and what’s new

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: July 23, 2008

Obama has earned scorn for this

To the editor:

The prominent front-page article, “Obama must maintain pace,” (July 18) is one of the better demonstrations of media bias in this presidential campaign.

Amazingly, no mention is made of Sen. Obama’s broken pledge in the 27 paragraphs discussing his campaign finance status, and since it fails to do so, I will.

In response to a questionnaire last November from the Midwest Democracy Network — made up of nonpartisan government oversight groups — Obama said: “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.”

But when the money started rolling in, with the choice between a prior pledge and political expediency, his decision to forego public financing was a no-brainer. On the highly respected non-partisan Fact Checker Web site, this earned him the dubious award of three Pinocchios out of four for “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.” See: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/06/obama_reneges_on_public_financ.html

JOHN C. LIPPERT

To the editor:

I would like to express my gratitude to National College for sponsoring a comprehensive overview of its information technology programs last Thursday, “Seminar outlines need for technology training,” (July 19, page A3).

Although the public was encouraged to attend, it seemed that they weren’t interested in attending this enlightening event.

It’s truly a shame that citizens have missed out on an opportunity that could lead to greater possibilities in improving their current livelihoods, despite the current state of both the local and national economies.

Such aversion to encouraging enterprises will only fuel a deeper, downward spiral. No one can be blamed for such a detriment than those who would rather have someone else carry their bootstraps.

KELVYN HARRIS

Danville