Letter: Criticism is not trampling rights

Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

An editorial in Monday's Las Vegas Sun denounced Defense Secretary Robert Gates' reaction to an impending Senate resolution expressing opposition to the president's new strategy for Iraq. Did Gates round up the offending senators to face treason charges? Or threaten them with civil or criminal penalties? No, he merely expressed his opinion that the resolution may have unintended consequences.

Apparently, in the view of the Sun's editorial, while legislators expressing opposition to the administration represents the strength of our democracy, members of the administration responding with criticism of their own is an affront to democracy. This is another example of what has become a common, yet quite mistaken, theme on the political left in the last few years: that adherence to our principles requires that those who criticize the administration must not be criticized themselves.

But these principles are not one-way streets. The very same requirements of democracy and debate which allow those who oppose the administration to condemn it also necessarily permit supporters of the administration to express their opinions of those critics and their policies.

Criticism of one's opponents does not constitute trampling their rights of free speech. In equating the two, the Sun's editorial page writers reveal it is they and not Secretary Gates who are in need of a lesson in civics.

Michael Chamberlain, Las Vegas