Varied paths, same result

I regretfully admit that I look forward to Gary Crooks’ weekly columns. I find it amusing to speculate which Democratic talking point he will choose for this week’s column.

This past Sunday I guessed wrong. I thought he’d make the case that the disaster in Haiti was somehow George Bush’s fault. But Gary threw me a curveball. He chose to defend President Obama and the Democrats’ plan to help control and reduce the cost of health care by taking away the tax exemption for having good health insurance.

Crooks dismisses the seeming unfairness and contradiction of the concept as just business as usual in Washington, D.C. No big thing.

Kudos to Gary for picking a seemingly indefensible position and yet finding a way to defend the president and take a slap at Republicans for not being sufficiently outraged about other “deals” made by Democrats as part of the health care debacle. Those darn Republicans.

The destination of every Crooks column is the same (Democrats are good and Republicans are bad); it’s discerning which path he’ll take to reach that conclusion week after week which makes the Sunday paper so fascinating.

Larry Medin

Spokane