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By that logic …

To the editor:

President Trump’s threat to use active-duty soldiers to quell protests in the nation’s cities raises serious constitutional, ethical and political questions. Kudos to the Enterprise for localizing the controversy in an article this past Friday.

In that article, former congressman Bill Owens (a Democrat) criticizes Trump’s reaction to the protests, which in some cases have turned violent. A spokeswoman for Elise Stefanik, Owens’s Republican successor, dismissed his criticism as coming from someone “who never cracked 50% of the vote.”

That’s quite an insult — to the public’s intelligence. Whether Bill Owens is right or wrong has nothing to do with his showing at the polls. But if we are using electoral performance as a criterion of credibility, it’s ironic that Stefanik’s spokeswoman invokes it in defense of a president who lost the popular ballot by almost 3 million votes. By her logic, we should dismiss everything Trump says. Although I don’t buy the logic, I accept the conclusion.

Phil Brown

Saranac Lake

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