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Letter: If bad precedents, it’s the president’s doing

Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Norris H. Richardson’s Oct. 9th letter to the Gazette-Journal ("A very dangerous precedent," Readers Write) warning of a risk in "Tea Party Republicans"... "shutting the government down" would only be another hyperbolic howl if it weren’t so demonstrative of the large-scale chronic, historical and legal illiteracy that characterizes so many in our country. To write about "rule of law" as Mr. Richardson does in connection with what we are witnessing in both the passage and implementation of Mr. Obama’s health care legislation, is to turn that phrase on its head.

What we are witnessing in the current debate are two political sides in conflict, with one using the conventional procedures in place to attempt to affect a very unpopular legislative act’s implementation. I dare to wonder where Mr. Richardson might have been with Plessy v. Ferguson? Or with Dred Scott? For a long time, the U.S. Supreme Court also said those decisions were C...

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