DEAR EDITOR:

The self-proclaimed really stable genius really stepped in it.

I would think a really smart guy would avoid betraying the very allies whose invaluable assistance helped our troops dismantle the ISIS caliphate that he alone was tough enough to take on. He probably would not release thousands of terrorists those same allies captured and kept penned in makeshift prisons for him, either.

By the light of his self counsel, though, he has done both. Of course, he’s always thrown his cabinet members, advisers and associates under the proverbial bus, so it’s not too surprising that he’s just as willing to offer up the Kurds to the tender mercies of a vicious dictator who immediately began slaughtering them. And yet, some of us wonder why government whistleblowers need the protection of anonymity. Do we really think a self-serving narcissist, for whom no greater good exists beyond his own, would hesitate to destroy them, or you, or anyone who dared oppose his bluster with facts?

I can agree with the present head of the executive branch that sovereign nations require sovereign borders; that we are not the world’s police; that D.C. is a swamp of manipulators, liars and thieves.

However, I do not agree that a medieval wall and moat behind which toddlers are torn from the arms of their parents; betraying comrades-in-arms to slaughter for a campaign promise and to create a distraction from personal wrongdoing; wallowing further in the muck that obscures what should be the clear choices of government that are appropriate policy choices.

These are techniques suitable only for use by producers of reality TV that has nothing to do with the real world.

Everyone is a victim to trickery at one time or another. Fortunately, Americans still have the wonderful power of the ballot box to correct their errors of judgment. I cannot believe my fellow citizens, once duped by an egregiously false leader, will allow themselves to be fooled again. Therefore, as a proudly independent voter in the only one of 88 counties in Ohio to smell the rat in 2016, I look forward to voting with my fellow Buckeyes determined to drain the swamp by ridding it of its alpha predator before pulling the plug on the less dangerous critters.

JIM CARTWRIGHT

Canfield