In January of 2009, exactly nine days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, one of our Republican congressional leaders referred to the new regime during a television interview as the "failed Obama administration." On June 9 of the same year, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, declared on the Senate floor (also televised) that the primary purpose of the Republican Party was to assure that Mr. Obama would be a "One. Term. President."
During the ensuing seven and a half years, the Republican-led legislature has repeatedly and flatly refused to act on many of Mr. Obama's proposals, culminating in the Senate's current stonewalling of the president's Supreme Court nomination ("Hypocrisy ran rampant at Dems' convention," July 27). The Republican Congress has made no secret of its collective hatred of Barack Obama, ignoring his proposals to seek common ground and, in the case of Iran, dispatching a letter to Iran's head of state signed by 40 GOP members telling him to ignore the White House's diplomatic initiatives (a letter which Iran ignored, thank you).
Perhaps the boldness and arrogance with which Congress has again and again defied the nation's chief executive without pretending that their hostility was anything less than absolute absolves them of being called "hypocrites," but their blithe disregard for the well-being of the nation, its people and its standing among other nations, all the while collecting salaries and generous benefits, does not. President Obama engaged in hypocrisy? Pot, meet kettle.
Thad Paulhamus, Baltimore