After reading the letter from Bill Hirt in the Reporter dated Feb. 19 regarding the Washington State Department of Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson’s termination, I feel I had to comment.

It is amazing how quickly Republicans terminate non-elected officials for making bad decisions while covering up or ignoring those made by elected officials who in fact have the ultimate responsibility for actions on those they supervise.

The latest example of the hypocrisy is that of Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan who, in an effort to save $5 million, poisoned the drinking water of Flint, Michigan resulting in the illnesses of thousands of citizens and in children being permanently damaged. This has cost the state of Michigan $58 million and still counting and us federal taxpayers $83 million and still counting, a good part of it coming from the citizens of Washington state.

The worst example of hypocrisy and most costly is that of former President George W. Bush attacking Iraq based on lies, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars and still counting.

Prior to that was the Vietnam War, which was started on a lie. In none of the above has there been calls for impeachment of the elected officials.

The media displays bias in the coverage of Peterson’s termination while not demanding the same treatment of elected officials. This country will continue to be divided so long as there is bias in how each of its citizens are treated with those having wealth, position, power getting off without punishment of any kind and too often rewarded as in the case of bankers who have been well compensated since creating the financial collapse of 2008.

George Whitaker

Bellevue