Rockville Centre Letters to the Editor July 22, 2010

D’Amato is all too predictable

To the Editor:

To use some of Alfonse D'Amato's own words, "Shame on you, L.I. Herald!" You should be ashamed for giving Al D'Amato carte blanche to criticize our president and any Democrat he pleases without any regard for the facts. I thought the idea of adding Senator D'Amato to your stable of columnists was to provide balance, but I'm getting tired of seeing his incendiary comments every week without any counterpoint or any regard to fact-checking or common sense.

Last week's column on the Arizona immigration issue ("Protect our citizens!") was so blatantly political, with no reasonable discussion of the complicated issues involved. You'd think that no Mexicans had ever crossed the U.S. border until President Obama took office! Senator D'Amato seems fixated on bashing The New York Times and makes a backhanded reference to a Times comment on "a comprehensive reform bill." But he conveniently forgets to mention the immigration reform bill that President George W. Bush courageously proposed, and received bipartisan support for, but which was ultimately sabotaged by the Republican Senate in 2007 for their own political reasons.

I've been reading Senator D'Amato's columns for many months now and have yet to see him propose any constructive proposals about any of the many serious issues that confront our nation, our state and our county. All that I read is someone who continues to spout the party line regardless of what the facts say. I respect the Herald and your journalism, and hope that you will reconsider having Senator D'Amato as one of your columnists, or find some way to provide balance to his continual disregard for the facts.

Bernie Kilkelly

Lynbrook

What's up with Al?

To the Editor:

Al D'Amato's editorials have turned into weekly attacks on any politicians, and any current policies, that have been put in place since Al left office. It's easy for him to sit in his chair now and take pot shots and criticize those policies — but many of them have been implemented as a result of mistakes made by prior state and county leaders.

In years past we had state and county employees who never showed up for work and got paid for it. We had friends and relatives getting jobs and receiving pensions, wasting state and county funds. Al was around for all of that when he was involved in state and county politics. Now we wonder why all those questionable pensions are still draining all that money. That's part of how we got where we are today.

Lenny Shaw

Long Beach