Unhappy 5th for King - Letters to the Editor

From Today's Newsday:

Peter King thin-skinned

Obviously Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) doesn't care for his constituency asking him questions about issues that are raising concerns across America, not just Long Island. When a letter writer questioned the Bush administration, King said that the writer was "morally, intellectually and politically wrong" ["Fightin' words," News, June 30].
I wonder if Rep. King says the same thing about the Republican senators who are asking these same questions. Has he told this to Vietnam veterans Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), both of whom have said that they have "no confidence" in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld?
Or perhaps he has written similar letters to his own House colleagues Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), who have called for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq?
He told another writer, "You don't know as much about Social Security as you pretend." Is this King's attempt to bully dissenters in his neighborhood, or is he completely out of touch with the questions that are being asked across New York and America on this very day?
P.C.
Glen Cove

Constituents who receive abusive letters from Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) should consider themselves lucky they get a response at all. I've resided in his district for a number of years and have yet to receive a reply to any of the messages I've sent to him. In contrast, I have received thoughtful - and sometimes personalized - replies from Sens. John McCain, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton and other members of Congress from both parties. Even when they don't agree with me, they express respect for my opinions and go on to explain their own positions without resorting to negative language. Legislators of any party who don't respect and listen to all of their constituents should be turned out. I trust the voters will remember Rep. King's nasty letters - and equally nasty comments in Newsday - when we go to the polls in his district next year.

D.F.
Locust Valley


Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) may have thought he was doing the Bush administration a favor when he said, "We would not have invaded Iraq without 9/11" ["Linking Iraq with 9/11," News, June 29]. Instead, he neatly summarized Bush's deception. No one in 2001, and no one now, could or can produce any evidence that Iraq had any role, even indirectly, in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. King reminds us that the attacks served as a handy pretext for an administration already hell-bent on making war with Saddam Hussein. It is a horrible, but foreseeable, irony that now there are plenty of terrorists in Iraq, because Bush's war put them there.

D.S.
Ridgewood