Selective Outrage Over Straight Ticket Voting

Regarding "Two reasons to avoid straight-ticket voting" (Friday Front Page), as she does in many of her columns, Patricia Kilday Hart goes to particular pains to besmirch Republicans, or to excuse the misbehavior of Democrats by rationalizing that their offenses are no different from those of Republicans.  In this most recent article, she compares Lloyd Oliver, this year’s Democratic Party nominee for Harris County DA to Louis Guthrie, Republican Party nominee for Harris County sheriff, and finds them equally wanting. 

 

While Oliver's resume is in fact replete with instances of lawlessness and malpractice, her recitation of Guthrie's offenses are pretty thin gruel.  We are informed that in a prior job, Guthrie was found in possession of "prohibited ammunition, 'specifically a full metal jacket bullet'."  Given that this type of bullet is less useful in stopping an assailant, it was likely just an honest mistake, as opposed to Hart's implication of a more sinister intent.  She also documents various other of Guthrie's offenses, including two minor traffic accidents, "horseplay", and cursing at a bar patron.    

 

Hart's "gotcha" anecdote regarding Guthrie supposedly exceeding his authority at a car wash where his wife claimed to have had $17 stolen is tainted as well, given that most of the dirt she dishes comes courtesy of Guthrie's opponent, current Sheriff Adrian Garcia.  And while she goes to great pains to rationalize the outcome to Guthrie's disadvantage, there is compelling evidence that Garcia's investigators skewed the investigation against Guthrie, and that the matter will ultimately be decided in his favor.

 

Beyond that, it is revealing that yet a further illustration of Guthrie (a Republican) overstepping some boundary that would result in nothing more than an administrative penalty should be in Hart's eyes the moral equivalent of Lloyd Oliver (a Democrat) attempting to suborn perjury from a witness in order to suppress pursuit of a criminal rape case.  Unfortunately, Hart and the rest of the Commentariat do this a lot more than is seemly, or warranted.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress