To the editor:
I would like nothing more than to be able to read a letter from James Olsen and not find fault with any of his logic. He is passionate and involved, it’s just too bad he has never had the moral high ground so that his positions on government, politics or community could ever be taken seriously.
Olsen no longer subscribes to the Review not because of his perception that the paper is partisan, but because of the paper’s excellent journalistic record exposing him for the hypocrite he is. Whether it is something as small as his illegal use of government insignias on his campaign literature, or as awful as his racist vendetta against our neighbors of Japanese heritage and the belittling of America’s shameful past with regards to the Japanese internment, the Review would be derelict in its duties if it didn’t report on such behavior of a public figure.
On that note, it is silly for Olsen to invoke the name of hallowed Review editor Walt Woodward, when Woodward would have probably spent even more time in the paper publicly humiliating Olsen for the hateful, homophobic, racist, lawbreaker and hypocrite that he is.
Contrary to Olsen’s views on the Review’s reporting of Gary Tripp’s PAC this campaign season, I for one think the paper went too easy on the subject. Not once did the Review mention that shoreline homeowners have entrusted tens of thousands of their hard-earned dollars to a convicted cocaine dealer. A drug dealer who sold out all of his friends to the DEA for a reduced sentence, I might add. Not to mention the fact that Gary Tripp has spent the last two decades rallying shoreline homeowners to his cause, when he isn’t even a shoreline homeowner himself!
Could I possibly be so cynical to assume that a convicted felon doesn’t actually care about his “cause” and really just wants the easy money that comes with running a political action committee?
Consider this: after Tripp is done yelling at the council during the public comment period, usually to complain that they have never answered any of his questions/allegations, he then immediately leaves the building when he is done speaking and is never around to actually receive an answer to any of his questions/allegations!
There are well more than 1,000 waterfront homes on Bainbridge Island with an average value of about $1 million each. Why find work when Gary Tripp can just repeat the same discredited lies about the SMP or liveaboards over and over to convince some portion of that $1 billion-plus of wealth to donate to his “cause”?
HOUSTON WADE
Bainbridge Island
