Dear editor,
While reading what seems to me the outrageous reaction of congressional (and other) responses by Republicans to Donald Trump being convicted of financial missteps in a New York state court, I was reminded of an editorial Emerson Lynn, my mentor of many years at The Register, wrote in his later years of producing local editorials.
Daily, Emerson was accused of shifting to a liberal position in his political commentaries.
Not so, Emerson firmly wrote one day. “I’m not leaving the Republican Party, it is leaving me.”
As I read House Speaker Mike Johnson’s lacerations of common sense and decency, in reference to Trump’s conviction, I realized that sometime ago the GOP also left me by the side of the road.
I think when 12 people, agreed upon by lawyers on both sides, weigh evidence and find that it tells them, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Trump was guilty, that verdict should be accepted.
The former president will have opportunity to have the verdict, and whatever sentence he is given, reviewed in the appellate process. If missteps were made, they will be found and considered.
Also, I don’t think the rule of law has been rigged to degrade Trump. But, I will be 81 soon after he is sentenced, and maybe I’m a little jaded.
The trial was not unusual, as he and his supporters railed. In the last decade about 10,000 such cases of alleged financial cover-ups have been heard in New York courts; about 10 percent resulted in prison sentences. Whether Trump joins the 10 percent is up to the judge, as it should be, and he hasn’t helped himself with the things he can’t keep himself from saying, a foible he’s had for many moons.
I certainly don’t mean to recommend how anyone should vote come November, that’s completely up to the soul-searching each person must pursue.
My only comment in that regard is that I yearn for the times when politicians were not so self-centered, and political parties were not so polarized.
Another Emerson Lynn observation: He once told me not to write editorials after the fact and to separate my public life from my private. He occasionally would write a scathing editorial about one politician or another, and then have them come by the office for a visit and sometimes to his and Mickey’s home for dinner.
Amen.
Bob Johnson
Humboldt, Kan.
