To the editor:

Congresswoman Stefanik’s particular gift is the ability to be plausibly on both sides of a controversial issue but vote straight party line. Racist taunts of your colleagues should not have two sides. In this case it amounts to defending the indefensible.

Ms. Stafanik recently voted against a congressional resolution that strongly condemned President Trump’s textbook racist comments about four of her colleagues. She agreed that the comments were “inappropriate” but for partisan reasons couldn’t vote for the resolution. Partisan thinking is what is wrong with Ms Stefanik. Personal racist taunts should be beyond politics — they are just plain wrong. Yet, cynically, her press release misleadingly expressed outrage that Ms. Pelosi could refer to the president’s words as racist.

President Trump has turned personal attacks on political opponents into a demagogic art form. In this case, he has evidently decided to run against four young non-white first-term congresswomen, all colleagues of Ms. Stefanik. He has decided to attack them in the vilest manner including racist taunts and slanderous lies.

Ms. Stefanik should be able to defend her colleagues from racist taunts independent of whether she agrees with their politics or not. Unfortunately, she seems to lack the moral courage do to so. Instead she is simply a partisan hack excusing and participating in blatant personal racist taunts of her colleagues. It is a vile way to base a political campaign.

Peter Hahn

Ray Brook