What have Hawaiians done to deserve being treated with blatant hostility and disrespect in their native land — or be singled out as some kind of evil-doers by the Bush administration in its ideological dismantling of federal programs that once protected minority rights?

What business does the civil rights commission have giving special standing to self-interested litigants seeking to claim traditional Hawaiian assets as their own?

The current hearings are not an intellectually honest attempt to arrive at the facts, but a political power play to find the most-expedient path to a preconceived outcome.

The appropriate response is to ignore the hearings and any findings that come from them.