Letter to the Editor: The kerfuffle

Dear Editor,
Did you catch the blushing kerfuffle, when Jason Smith was caught fudging facts on the national stage?
Acting as point man for the Republican impeachment inquiry, Congressman Smith led with his smoking gun, a kid Biden e-mail to his pop, dated 6/6/17.
Smith was caught flat-footed, stumbling and mumbling, when an NBC reporter pointed out that Joe Biden was neither VP nor presidential candidate at that time. Influence peddling is a little tricky when you have no influence.
Apparently the “melt down” went viral on the Internet, and it is interesting to note that the world saw an embarrassing event while the readers of this paper are privy to a pattern of behavior, the Congressman has been scolded twice this year, in this opinion page, for not doing his homework.
As impeachment drum major and Chairman of Ways and Means Smith seems to be a budding Washingtonian,-a player, and he ought to study the-career of the man from Missouri,” Harry Truman,­whose rise through the Washington ranks was meteoric.

Frank accountability was Harry’s claim to fame.
After drilling a double in the 1964 World Series, the switch-hitting Yankee slugger, Mickey Mantle, was coaxed into conversation with the Cardinal shortstop, Dick Groat. Before you could say “pin stripe” Mickey was-picked off second base!
Head hung low, leaving the field, the Hall-of-Farner hollered back to Groat, “Did you have to do that in front of 20 million people?”
Jason Smith’s constituents have every right to say the same. Show me, not “Shower me with lies,” used to be the default disposition of the typical Missourian, and many of us continue to abide by that simple but straightforward point of view.
Jesse Laurentius
Perryville