Dan Liljenquist's gleeful recounting of adversity in the Obama presidency is unfortunate ("Chaffetz's search for truth in Benghazi paid off," May 16). Extremism on the left and on the right is much the same. Salient in both are fear and hate of an "other" and detachment of reality. Where extremism errs is in its rigid dichotomy of paired opposites, like friend and foe. A sense of peril embodied in the "other" lends urgency to a strategy of attack and defeat. Concessions are considered immoral; fraternizing with the enemy traitorous.
Yet victory under these circumstances is forever a mirage in a sea of endless conflict and disturbing cycles of boom and bust. Seeming opposites are in truth more complementary and interdependent than exclusive (e.g., male and female, night and day). Both are necessary. Far better suited to a resolution of differences and to progress than suppressing the "other" are accommodation and ever broader inclusivity nearer the center where opposition is balanced.
Andrew McDonald
Mapleton