Letter: Speaker battle is democracy at work

Democrats are having a right jolly time scoffing at Republicans for their inability to elect a speaker of the House. The poor party is in such disarray, they chuckle, they can't even pick a leader.

Every Republican in the land should hold his or her head up proudly as we watch real democracy at work. This campaign for speaker of the House just might be the party's proudest moment.

"We Democrats never have such problems," they boast. "We elect our leaders lickity-split." Well, of course they do. They're Democrats. They do what they're told to do.

Every Democratic representative in the House is told when he or she is a naive waif newly elected that if they want to get reelected, they'll need the party's support and if they want the party's support, they'll vote as the party tells them to vote. And that includes voting for the speaker of the House as selected in secret session by senior Democrats.

They portray such unanimity, however slyly achieved, as good government.

But, as Sir Winston Churchill is believed to have said, "Democracy is messy." That's what Republicans in the House of Representatives are about. However it turns out, Republicans can be proud that they can vote their conscience, their hearts, what they believe, and to hell with what the party leadership says. And so it gets messy.

Right now the vote is being held up by hard-right GOP members. They have every right to speak their piece, express their views and vote the way they believe is right.

Democrats have hard-left members in the House. Even they, some avowed Socialists, do not dispute the party's leaders. The party has warned them: Vote as you're told or there will be consequences when you seek reelection. So they vote as they're told to vote.

Don Frost

Lake Summerset