Doing Spector Proud
As an avid reader of the Advocate and a critic of the choices Paul Spector has made as a Northampton city councilor, I was interested to see what other avid readers could offer as support for the councilor. Peter Hirschman and Phoebe Sheldon, in their letters to the Advocate last week ("Roessler Wrong on Bardsley," June 4, 2009), say it better than Spector himself could. Hirschman uses the Advocate's report of Spector's own faineant claim about how easy it would have been for Bardsley to get a line item budget to review and evaluate—although Spector hadn't done so himself—to make an even more outrageous claim: "Truth is, the budget is pretty much down to the bones—there is very little fat to trim—and Councilor Bardsley knows this." And how does Hirschman know? Did he review a line-item budget?
Phoebe Sheldon borrows Spector's very words to describe the Advocate as "Fox Newspeak." She echoes Spector when she writes, "I for one will not bother with the Advocate again." Spector once said that he wouldn't bother to read the Advocate—just before he was seen leaning against a building downtown immersed in a copy.
Kenneth Mitchell
Northampton
In re Phoebe Sheldon's and Peter Hirschman's responses to your May 21 story, "Spector vs. Bardsley:" The issue at hand is transparency in city government. As I understand it, it is the mayor's responsibility to release the budget for the next fiscal year (July 1, 2009) to the City Council in a timely fashion. I find it highly suspect that this was not done until the end of May, after the decision to seek a Prop. 2 1/2 override had already been made.
David B. Erba
via email
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Keillor Keeps It Real
It is inappropriate for Rory O'Connor ("Keillor on Torture," May 28, 2009) to suggest that the venerable Garrison Keillor is not a true liberal because he is not in favor of prosecuting members of the Bush administration for war crimes. It is the same impractical approach to politics that reduced the Republicans from a dominant political power to an extreme minority party. The pressure to adopt a monolithic view within a party weakens the coalition that party needs to remain in power.
There is room for dissent and disagreement on the left. However, to question whether someone is a real liberal is to take those first irresponsible steps toward fragmenting our newly powerful coalition. I expect that O'Connor was among the chorus of liberals who, not long ago, was clamoring for the impeachment of President Bush. Although Bush's conduct warranted impeachment, pursuing such an action might have left us bemoaning the election of a President McCain.
Let's not squander the opportunity to make a difference. Let's heed Mr. Keillor's advice that we "move on." And, please, let's not push anyone out of our liberal tent so soon after we enlarged it.
John P. DiBartolo, Jr.
Florence
