Letter: Speaking of pandering

Weren’t you amused reading Jim Hartman’s column, “Biden Panders On Pot,” in the Nevada Appeal of May 11?

He opined about the president yet paid no heed to the former (impeached-but-not-convicted) president who was the alpha to Biden’s prospective omega.

I speak nada (yet) of the current presumptive GOP presidential nominee and Biden predecessor, but of that way back predecessor known as Richard Milhous Nixon. You see, it was Nixon’s administration that branded marijuana a Schedule 1 drug back then.

Biden’s folks say it’s a Schedule 3 drug – perhaps. You can laugh now, whichever side you’re on. If Biden panders to youth (no one thinks he isn’t, so there’s scant news in Hartman’s piece), what was Nixon doing in his day on pot?

Polishing his GOP base strategy when he was, in many ways, a wannabe donkey in an anti-communist elephant costume? Pander is as pander does. After all, they’re politicians. It’s what they do.

I await Mr. Hartman’s indignant column on the current likely GOP nominee’s open attempt to extort from the fossil fuel industry $1 billion in oily campaign money for this year’s election.

Did we miss that Hartman commentary? Don’t bet it’s coming soon. Bet on this, folks: President Biden will pander to retain power; his immediate predecessor will pander for big bucks to return to power. In this pander-plus place, the U.S. of A for angling, the more things change the more they stay the same.

J.B. Barrette

Carson City