In your Saturday edition, reader Ed Rutan commented on my recent letter to The Park Record. Mr. Rutan claimed that I had “missed the point” of a guest editorial submitted by Frans Bicker Caarten. I am afraid that it is Mr. Rutan who missed my point.
My response said nothing about the credibility of politicians, and on that subject I suspect that Mr. Rutan, Mr. Caarten and I likely would agree. My response related solely to Mr. Caarten’s conclusion as to the constitutionality of a legal proceeding. The question that I raised related to Mr. Caarten’s qualifications to state a legal conclusion having no training in complex legal matters.
I respect Mr. Rutan’s right to try to defend and support Mr. Caarten’s political opinions, but in submitting his response to my letter, Mr. Rutan missed or ignored my point entirely. Mr. Caarten can reach no valid or credible legal conclusion about a subject on which he has had no formal training, to my knowledge. (He certainly is free to have an opinion about Donald Trump.) This is no different than Mr. Rutan, Mr. Caarten or me expressing our “learned” opinions on astrophysics or neuro-medicine.
Perhaps Mr. Rutan is qualified as a retired attorney to have an opinion on the legal subject of constitutionality. However, he did not offer such a conclusion in his response. Had he done so and agreed with Mr. Caarten, he would have gone against almost every legal scholar that I have read.
Instead, Mr. Rutan chose to question points completely beyond the scope of my response, specifically what certain politicians said about a court proceeding. I made no comment on the remarks of any politician, only on the legal conclusion stated by someone who, to my knowledge, is unqualified to give such an opinion. Therefore, I believe it is Mr. Rutan who missed my point.
Richard Hafets
Park City