Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I am not the biggest follower of politics, and I might not be the best source when it comes to talking about “the issues.” However, what I do know is that politics and sports should never be meshed, even if it’s in the name of fun.

On Saturday, Gov. Sarah Palin dropped the puck along with other hockey moms at the Philadelphia Flyers home opener against the New York Rangers.

She was serenaded with a barrage of booes from the fans of one of the NHL’s most violent teams.

You could say she had it coming, not because of her recent follies, but because she was dropping the puck in Philadelphia. What did they expect would happen? Fans would cheer? These are the same people who booed Santa Claus at an Eagles game, and cheered when Dallas receiver Michael Irvin was carried off the football field in a stretcher.

This wasn’t a partisan crowd booing a candidate for their policies, this was a crowd who wanted to watch hockey and would be damned if some politician got in the way.

The Flyers lost the game 4-3, so if anything, Palin has now earned the ire of Flyers fans that are looking for any reason to pin a loss on someone other than their team.

So what does any politician have to gain from appearing in front of rabid fans trying to take a break from the hoopla of the election?

Palin gained an embarrassing YouTube video that will generate more laughs than votes. Sure she wasn’t officially campaigning, but in reality she was.

Pennsylvania is a swing state, and someone in the McCain-Palin campaign must have thought that all hockey fans love Sarah Palin. They thought wrong. As a hockey fan, I know that if Palin had dropped the puck at the Washington Capitals season opener Saturday, I would have booed too. Not because I don’t support her, but because the only playing surface a politician belongs on is the campaign trail.

Sincerely,
Reed S. Albers

Dear Editor,

America’s seniors have enough to worry about with Sen. John McCain’s promise to pursue the same Bush risky privatization scheme for Social Security. The privatization plan would slash benefits and turn Social Security from a guarantee into a guaranteed gamble on Wall Street.

According to the Oct. 6 issue of Wall Street Journal, “John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, a top aide said, in a move that independent analysts estimate could result in cuts of $1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich infamously wanted Medicare to “wither on the vine” in the ’90s with $300 billion in proposed cuts. Today, McCain’s plan wants to take a chainsaw to Medicare and the guaranteed care it reliably provides for 43 million seniors.

According to USA Today, there is also devastating news this week that Americans’ retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months. It is important to note that if Bush and McCain had had their way in 2005 and privatized Social Security, millions of Americans’ “personal retirement accounts” carved from the Social Security trust fund would be ensnared in this financial catastrophe on Wall Street. Incredibly, McCain still supports privatization.

These are very scary proposals in very scary economic times. Find out where your Senators and Congressperson stand.

Jeremy J. Funk