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Letter: Hatch’s witless ‘dumbass people’ comment brings to mind others

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Members of the Utah Senate praise U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, relaying their personal stories with him from his 42 years in office, as Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, is declared "Orrin G. Hatch Day." Hatch is the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history.

Sen. Orrin Hatch’s description of Obamacare supporters as “the stupidest, dumbass people I’ve ever met” reminds me of other witless comments by our family-values senator. I’ll offer two examples.

Although many of us wrote him to oppose the Iraq War, he not only proceeded to vote for it but would later describe Utah war protesters as “nutcakes,” showing that when the facts aren’t on your side, you go with insults.

However, when it comes to stupidity, it would be hard to top Hatch’s comment to reporters only hours after terrorists crashed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. That’s when he disclosed highly classified material by revealing that U.S. intelligence had intercepted a telephone call from a suspect reporting to his handler that the New York and D.C. targets had been hit. This breach, according to The Chicago Tribune, left senior Bush administration officials infuriated and dumbfounded. One angry official even used an expletive after learning of Hatch’s comments.

Looking back, we can only wonder what expletive the official used. It certainly would have been understandable if he had described our Utah senator as one of “the stupidest, dumbass people I’ve ever met.”

Steve Warren, West Valley City