I, and Mainers who care about the truth, do not find anything to joke about or ridicule what has happened to thousands of American citizens who have lost their livelihood, and the millions of species of wildlife whose life cycle has changed because of the greed and destruction by the Bush-Cheney years.

Kenneth L. Murray of North Monmouth (letter July 29) must think it a joke that a 2009 investigation by the Inspector General of the United States found that the staff at Minerals Management Service, appointed by Bush-Cheney, provided a bazaar of payoffs, bribes and kickbacks, spiced with scenes of female employees providing sexual favors to oil industry bigwigs. In three separate reports, the inspector general stated that this orgy of wheeling and dealing was “a culture of ethical failure” that cost American taxpayers millions in royalty fees and produced reams of bad science to justify unregulated, deep-water drilling in the Gulf.

It must hurt when the truth exposes people’s past heroes, such as Richard Nixon, Grandpa Prescott, George Sr. and sonny boy George Bush, for the evil and greedy things they have done to the American way of life.

People can hang on to their “liberal” and “conservative” labeling and ridicule and keep denying truth, but they will be left in the backwash of history as this country and the world moves on.

William R. Rice Jr., Wilton