To the Editor:

It almost seems symptomatic for the political culture in this country these days. The Massachusetts Republican State Committee, in a last-pitch effort to support the local Republican candidate for state representative, 14-year incumbent Susan Williams Gifford, mails out a flyer to all households in which Williams’ Democratic opponent, Sarah Hewins, is accused of numerous ethics violations. This happens at a time when it is almost impossible to respond to the allegations. Wareham Week editor Matthew Bernat writes a thoroughly researched online article (Nov. 5) in which he basically concludes that most of the allegations are not warranted or proven or are based on a distortion of the facts. When the Republican candidate for whose support the flyer has been distributed is being asked about the issue, she, against all odds, claims that she had no prior knowledge of the flyer, but, “after having some time to review it,” defends the alleged facts.

The conclusion that the Republican Party, probably with knowledge and consent of its local candidate, started a last-minute smear campaign seems kind of reasonable. But what happens when you say so (as I did in an online comment to the article)? Without knowing whether the commentator has anything to do with the Democrats, Mr. or Ms. “Barnstorm” (screen name), in what seems anything else but a brainstorm, blunders: “Hate to see a Democrat crying about a smear campaign. They are masters at that game!” And when somebody else tries to disprove the Republican flyer’s allegation of unethical behavior on Sarah Hewins’ part by noting that Hewins had consulted the state ethics commission about the issue in question, it sounds from the same barn that Massachusetts could not really have something like an “Ethics Commission,” because it is “one of the most corrupt [s]tates in the nation.” Proof: the “last 4 Speakers of the House were all under indictment. . . . All Democrats.”

Well, well, well. Hold your horses, respectively storm, in the barn! Certainly, the commentator is in so far right as it is an embarrassment for the Democrats to have such a history of unethical speakers. But does that mean that all Democrats are unethical and all Republicans ethical (or now allowed to be unethical, too)? Look at Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate” in New Jersey for example or at the number of indicted and convicted Republicans in the country. You’ll find unethical politicians quite evenly spread over both parties.

We should stop to view the world in black and white. When something is wrong, we should say so no matter whether we are donkeys or elephants or whatever kind of political animals. Aren’t we all sick of the partisan surrogates – we saw them on TV all the time – who declare a black horse to be white when it fits their partisan purpose? You can have a different opinion on most everything, but in a political discussion we should stick at least to a minimum of rationality and civility. So don’t generalize that all Democrats or all Republicans are bad. And maybe we should also debate with an open visor. The fact that a number of online commentators do not reveal their real names, but allow themselves to stay anonymous behind their screen names, is not really a healthy exercise of freedom of speech; it rather let’s them say just about anything without having to defend it in person.

Manfred Wiegandt

Wareham