I think you were overly kind to Heath Schuler in your assessment of his first 100 days [“Shuler’s First 100 Days,” April 11]. While I did vote for him, I did so only because the other option was even less appealing.
To begin, I think Schuler is incredibly misleading and dishonest when he labels himself a Democrat. Indeed, in just about every dimension, he is a conservative Republican. He is a religious fanatic and, as such, opposes abortion and stem-cell research. Reference to this appeared in your article, but it was glossed over.
Even worse, he has joined a group of other religious fanatics in the House to propose group prayer. This is an incredible violation of the separation of church and state. Your article seemed to miss this rather important issue.
While he eventually voted in favor of withholding funds for Iraq, his initial inclination was not to do so. Apparently some persuasion was required to secure his vote.
I have serious reservations about him and hope that he will at least be more honest and correctly label himself. To the extent that the Democrats took over the House in the most recent election, their majority can be seriously undermined and compromised by people like Heath Schuler, who are ultimately not on the Democratic side.
— Gary Soldow
Asheville
“While I did vote for him, I did so only because the other option was even less appealing.”
That sentence perfectly encapsulates everything that is wrong with politics today. You voted for Schuler because of the D beside his name, and not because of his policies, which weren’t that different from Charles Taylor’s.
It’s simple minding voting practices like that that makes the fatalist in me sit back and laugh while our country goes to hell on a hot turd.
Seems your main beef with Shuler (note the spelling) is the fact that he’s a devout Christian. Don’t look now, but so are plenty of other Democratic candidates and Democratic voters. Seems you’re not too concerned with Shuler’s textbook Democratic stance on the economy, Iraq, health care, minimum wage, etc. These are the issues that I find to be the most pressing to our nation. If you are so bothered by Shuler’s religious beliefs, you are no different from the fundamentalist religous right voters that can’t see past gay-marriage to the real issues. Furthermore, if Shuler were anti-religion do you really think he’d be in Washington now representing western NC? No way, we’d have still have Taylor.
Shuler is labeled correctly as a Democrat.
It irritates me to no end for the religious right to insinuate that someone cannot be both a Democrat and a Christian. This article only emboldens that mindset. Were it not for that spin, we’d have probably gotten Gore in 2000 and we’d obviously be in a much better place now. No, I don’t agree with his vote on stem-cell funding either, but this is politics and this man represents WNC and the majority of WNC’s voters.
Ok, I think I’m done now…
Prayer is a violation of separation of church and state? Okay, I will have to look this up in the U.S. Constitution….. I am still looking. Hmm.. where did you see that you say?
schuler running as a so called blue dog democrat really sucked alot of people in actually it was masterful by the dems Also everytime there is a vote ie immagration etc the New contact page fro congress whic I am convinced is controlled by reid pelosi and that maniac murtha is always i repeat always down due to errors check it out schuler is lock step with the dems nothing more nothing less we need to get rid of him in the next election
Shuler has done a wonderful job representing this area. The wording in your article seems to be as most close minded liberal thinkers. That is to say you want all the rights but do not want to see any given in return. Being a Christian is my right and freedom, its Shulers also. Further more I believe his votes and policies are representative of the man I voted for.