Letters to the Editor
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‘Pataki’s Last 100 Days Could Yet Produce Surprises In Albany’
It is pathetic to see Governor Pataki running off to Iowa thinking he’s presidential material while he’s governing a sinking ship at home. The front page article on “Pataki’s Last 100 Days Could Yet Produce Surprises In Albany” [New York, October 2, 2006] reported the top items on the legislative agenda to be hospital closures, legislative pay raises, charter schools, the reappointment of Jeff Wiesenfeld to the City University of New York board of trustees, among others. Rather, this lame-duck governor should be campaigning here in New York State to keep the “money-losing” hospitals open and instead should overhaul the health care industry by fighting to divert the billions of dollars in annual waste, fraud, and abuse from the Medicaid industry and from the Service Employees International Union Local 1199 to these hospitals and other charitable causes that need these funds. We are also watching Mr. Pataki’s performance in his last 100 days on expanding the charter school cap and reappointing Mr. Wiesenfeld, who champions higher academic standards, to determine whether Mr. Pataki is presidential material or not.
PHIL ORENSTEIN
Queens Village, N.Y.
‘Three Choices, Mr. President’
In “Three Choices, Mr. President” [Oped, Weekend Edition, October 27-29, 2006] Richard Holbrooke argues that with respect to Iraq, President Bush must decide either to “stay the course,” escalate, or start to disengage. Realistically, though, Ambassador Holbrooke states that for all practical purposes the essential choice comes down to either escalating or disengaging.
However, I believe there is an additional option. We could stand fast for our goal of promoting the democratization of the Middle East, but recognize that that goal may not be achievable within the framework of the artificial Arab states bequeathed to the world by the British and the French after World War I. The realization of democratization may require first our helping the Arabs to reorganize their region so that such states as are created represent the genuine self-determination of the Arab people.
If we follow this course of action, we would be affirming our finest principles and extending a hand of friendship to the Arab people in a way that we’ve never done before. This is an idea that I hope the Iraq Study Group will consider.
JAMES BERNSTEIN
New York, N.Y.
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