Dedication to GOP Makes Me Sad

GEORGE WILL’S column, which appeared Aug. 4 in the Rio Rancho Journal, is sad. Like so many Republican politicians, he, too, has determined to move to the right in order to appease the tea party people, whom he deems, apparently, the new wave. He is otherwise an intelligent man, and this is the sadness.

As to the substance of his column, it might be a reasonably fair assessment of the Republican convention of 1912, but there are other ways to look at it. William Allen White, for instance, a lifelong Republican — and a committed friend and admirer of Theodore Roosevelt — said, “... what may be called the liberal movement in the United States came to a rather definite and catastrophic climax in (the) summer of 1916” when the Republican party, led by that “hero” Elihu Root, and loyal by then to the man who would become the worst president of all time, Warren G. Harding, repudiated all of the so-called Bull Moose precepts, in direct consequence of the 1912 decision to nominate the absurd Taft. White wanted the Republican Party to protect the people from the trusts and big corporations.

Alas, though, for 100 years now, the Republican party has been dedicated to big money and a narrow interpretation of a Constitution that they only imagine. That George Will has chosen such an unfortunate allegiance is deplorable. ALLEN HARRISON Placitas