Draylen Mason Studio
I Dare You
RECEIVED Thu., June 3, 2004
Editor:
There is an interesting placement of two consecutive letters on the editorial page in the May 28 issue ["Postmarks"]. The first, on p.10, belabors a point about the 2000 presidential election. If Jason Meador would remove his partisan blinders, he could see that the recount for which he and his fellow Democrats were shrieking was conducted by two well-known left-wing publications. The Miami Herald and USA Today determined that President Bush did win the popular vote. Visit this URL for more details: www.fair.org/activism/usatoday-recount.html. Liberals expect the nation to "MoveOn.org" from Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes and perjury in front of a grand jury but simultaneously insist on harping on a lost election from four years ago. How ironic is that?
The letter that immediately follows Meador's screed includes "It is the soldier, not the reporter that has given us the freedom of the press." A subsequent letter in the same issue by David Horton cites "funny stuff with the overseas military ballots." Horton is obviously referring to the Democrats' efforts to have the military ballots thrown out because their numbers favored President Bush. Numerous adjectives could describe such a plot, but as a son of a veteran, I would hardly consider political attempts to disenfranchise our troops "funny."
Does each hand on the Chronicle's editorial staff know what the other is doing? Just as inept dancers have "two left feet," inept editorial staffs apparently have two left wings, as the Chronicle's editorial staff just demonstrated on its own pages. On the subject of editorial pages, an interesting piece appeared in the liberal newspaper of record, The New York Times on June 30. Visit www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/30bott.html?pagewanted=1&hp.
As a conservative, I read the Chronicle because it makes me feel so comparatively intelligent. Publish this letter. I dare you!
There is an interesting placement of two consecutive letters on the editorial page in the May 28 issue ["Postmarks"]. The first, on p.10, belabors a point about the 2000 presidential election. If Jason Meador would remove his partisan blinders, he could see that the recount for which he and his fellow Democrats were shrieking was conducted by two well-known left-wing publications. The Miami Herald and USA Today determined that President Bush did win the popular vote. Visit this URL for more details: www.fair.org/activism/usatoday-recount.html. Liberals expect the nation to "MoveOn.org" from Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes and perjury in front of a grand jury but simultaneously insist on harping on a lost election from four years ago. How ironic is that?
The letter that immediately follows Meador's screed includes "It is the soldier, not the reporter that has given us the freedom of the press." A subsequent letter in the same issue by David Horton cites "funny stuff with the overseas military ballots." Horton is obviously referring to the Democrats' efforts to have the military ballots thrown out because their numbers favored President Bush. Numerous adjectives could describe such a plot, but as a son of a veteran, I would hardly consider political attempts to disenfranchise our troops "funny."
Does each hand on the Chronicle's editorial staff know what the other is doing? Just as inept dancers have "two left feet," inept editorial staffs apparently have two left wings, as the Chronicle's editorial staff just demonstrated on its own pages. On the subject of editorial pages, an interesting piece appeared in the liberal newspaper of record, The New York Times on June 30. Visit www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/weekinreview/30bott.html?pagewanted=1&hp.
As a conservative, I read the Chronicle because it makes me feel so comparatively intelligent. Publish this letter. I dare you!
Michael S. Foster
[Ed. Reply: Michael, we all know you are more intelligent than we are, don't worry. Letters from the readers are exactly that – they don't reflect the Chronicle's views but those of the letter writers, so they are often contradictory to one another. Even with the staff, however, there is not a mandated point of view, so if there are two pieces on essentially the same topic published months apart by different writers, there could be conflicting editorial takes.
Finally, as we publish almost every serious letter that disagrees with something we've published or attacks us in general, daring us to print something is foolish. The Chronicle thrives on discussion, disagreement, dissent - almost anything to do with the free exchange of ideas.]
