Letter: Where was TCH when GOP was obstructing Obama?

My comment on the editorial, “Congress should forgo payback attitude,” (TCH, Jan. 8).

Is it justifiable for you to request teamwork of Congress going forward? Where were you in the last eight years about the concerted resistance the GOP exerted against anything the president proposed? Republican Sen. George Voinovich stated in 2009, “we had to be against it.”

But you did not speak out then, or since, to say their stance was intolerable. “Finding ways to work together should be the focus ...,” you said in the editorial. “Voters want their lawmakers to rise above political party vengeance and get back to the business of governing the country.” Sounds good, but where was your voice back then?

You want Democrats “not to obstruct everything they can because that’s what the Republicans did to them ...” And you’re asking this despite acknowledging that although Trump “ran as a Republican, we all know he is not beholden to the party. How his presidency will unfold is anybody’s guess.”

We need honest, responsible, healing journalism. Democrats will forbear and do what is best for this country. But you, because of your former silence and continued publishing of divisive cartoons and opinions, have not earned the right to ask this.

This story was originally published January 29, 2017 at 4:12 AM with the headline "Letter: Where was TCH when GOP was obstructing Obama?."