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THE INACCESSIBLE SENATOR Olympia Snowe’s refusal to meet with members of the Maine majority who recognize that the Iraq war was born of deliberate fraud and has become a bloodbath for Iraqis worse than anything Saddam Hussein visited on his own people (see "Visitors Sent Packing," by Sara Donnelly, December 23) is unsurprising. (1) Olympia Snowe has supported every war conceived in Republican Washington since Ronald Reagan’s proxy contra terror in Nicaragua (seven by my count), this one, she acknowledged in a conference call with peace activists, because she just did not know what to believe. So she went with the logical gymnast in the White House who, faced with years of inspections finding no weapons of mass destruction, demanded that Hussein prove a negative. (2) Snowe does not meet with peace folk, whether they are the majority, as during the contra terror and now, or not. She prosecuted one poor Aroostook County fellow for sitting in her office when she repeatedly refused him a meeting about the contras. Jerry Genesio, a founder of Veterans for Peace, caught her in a Congressional office building corridor and was invited in, then out when he mentioned the thousands of innocent civilian victims of the contras. She declared that she would not listen to sentimental arguments, Genesio reported. Snowe’s Portland aide, Cheryl Leeman, is a hospitable and attentive listener to delegations wanting to meet with Snowe, but she cannot answer questions directed to Snowe. Like former senator Bill Cohen, Snowe does not reflect the views of the majority of the Maine citizenry. Cohen was re-elected on charm. Given her inaccessibility, the Iron Lady’s security in Washington is something of a puzzle. William H. Slavick Portland |
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