Bearing false witness

Recently there have been many letters supporting Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Nearly all of these writers seem to have problems with that commandment regarding bearing false witness. Why would a rash of lies convince any reasonable person we should keep McMorris Rodgers as a lifelong political government employee?

The latest example of this comes from George Knapp’s letter (Sept. 6), which blithely misstates “S&P lowered the U.S. credit rating because of deficit spending by Congress” and because “Democrats are not willing to compromise.”

These falsehoods are refuted by the S&P’s own management, which explained that the reason for the downgrade was not because of the debt itself but because of the fear that Congress under the influence of GOP tea party extremists in the House would refuse to honor that debt and not raise the debt limit no matter how much the Democrats caved in.

It’s futile for the Democrats to keep on trying to be “the adults in the room” when the other side just keeps on offering new false realities as fast as Fox can think them up.

William Betz

Newport, Wash.