Misplaced vitriol in guest column

I read with a mixture of horror and indignation the column by Kathy Salvi, whose ranting is apparently newsworthy because she is the Illinois Republican Party Chair. I can’t imagine anyone else being allowed column space to spout such nonsense.

Ms. Salvi’s column certainly follows the current Republican line: Don’t offer anything substantive but be loud and nasty, despite a lack of facts; don’t offer solutions, just attack, attack, attack, using empty buzzwords like “radical leftist.How amusing that she states that “in an analysis of those cities in Illinois run by Republican mayors here in Illinois [sic], the air is fresher and the people happier.Analysis by who? What a ridiculous, unprovable statement.

How trenchant her accusations that things are worse today under Democratic “domination,despite facts of lower crime, a recovering economy and massive job creation. How odious her attacks on Welz, referring to his honorable 24-year military service as “stolen valor,adding the smug, cryptic comment, “Ask his own chaplain.Yet she ignores the fact that her own candidate, who “bypassedthe service, has insulted and denigrated our veterans, once referring to war hero John McCain as a “loser.

Her comments about Democratsproblems at the border are also amusing — where is that “big, beautiful wallthat Mexico was supposed to pay for?

I am saddened by the current state of the Republican Party, and Ms. Salvi seems to represent the new, lowered standard — a once-proud, patriotic party that no longer has a solid foundation and has been reduced to schoolyard bullying and name calling amidst a hate and violence that has no place in America. Ms. Salvi’s vitriol is misplaced and should be aimed at the apparent cognitive decline of her own candidate and the sad decay of her own party.

Joyce Lee

Mundelein