I read, with sadness, that the portrait of former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell has been banished from the Maine State House by House and Senate members. Like Mitchell, many older Mainers were the children or grandchildren of poor immigrants who barely graduated from high school. But also, like Mitchell, these Mainers were intelligent and blessed with parents who wanted a better life for their children than they had had. 

George Mitchell went from success to success in his career. He served a judgeship in Maine, was elected to the U.S. Senate and was the lead negotiator in the 1990s in the final resolution of Ireland’s decades-long Troubles. 

But now, we must not mention him. He has been shunned because he was once a correspondent of Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sex offender who destroyed the lives of teenage girls. I have seen no evidence of Mitchell ever visiting Epstein’s dens of iniquity and no proof that he joined Epstein in that horrible abuse. And yet we shun him. 

Why in heaven’s name are we doing this? Why is it that our state legislators are using the tactics of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who vilified government officials and private citizens as communists and destroyed their careers during the 1950s?

Shame on our legislators, who are trying to cancel the career of an honorable public servant. Sen. Mitchell deserves better treatment. And Mainers deserve legislative leaders who think before they choose to run with the pack on the latest media frenzy.

Susan Michael
Brunswick