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Choice? Freedom? Liberty? Don't let Reps. Paul Hodes or Carol Shea-Porter get away with uttering support for those words ever again.
Mayor-elect Ted Gatsas questioned the wisdom of hiring four new police officers when no one has any idea how their salaries will be paid beyond July 1.
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Andrew Cline has been editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader since October of 2001. His writing has appeared in more than 100 newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Review.Free to offend: Court gets Bennett ruling right
Reader comments
Monday, Jul. 10, 2006
ROCHESTER DOCTOR Terry Bennett would not win an award as the most courteous physician in New Hampshire. But that is no reason for the state Board of Medicine to discipline him.
Bennett gained nationwide notoriety last year after some patients complained that he made offensive comments to them. He allegedly told one woman that she was so fat she might be attractive only to a black man.
Three patients complained to the state Board of Medicine, which attempted to discipline Bennett for his comments. Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Edward Fitzgerald ruled on June 30 that the board's rules of conduct did not govern Bennett's speech. He therefore retained his First Amendment right to speak freely to his patients.
It was a good ruling. As Concord attorney Chuck Douglas, whose firm represented Bennett, said last week, Bennett is free to say what he wants and his patients are free to seek another doctor if they don't like it. Appealing to the Board of Medicine to silence him is the wrong remedy.
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