A Letter to the Editor

Talk show radio, only with better grammar

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

09/21/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Humor/a_letter_to_the_editor.htm

Most American newspapers may not print much news any more, but they usually strive for accuracy in what limited information they do report. They might not report evidence that Putsch did nothing to prevent 9/11 from unfolding the way it did, but they’ll fire a reporter who gets the times the planes struck the buildings wrong.

It’s a strange time for journalism in America. The "mainstream" press continues to pretend that they are free and open because they don’t have to answer to government for what they write, but they are entirely the creatures of the privatized tyranny of the corporations. Some, like Fox and the Washington Times, don’t even try to pretend that they have no more freedom than a kept mistress.

Christiane Amanpour came right out the other day and accused CNN – and herself – of engaging in self-censorship on its coverage of the ramp up to the attack on Iraq, and the subsequent attack and occupation by "coalition" forces. Before joining CNN, Amanpour was a journalist, and an excellent one, and I’m glad to see her starting to go back to her roots.

But papers strive for accuracy when they aren’t self-censoring on behalf of their owners.

There are exceptions, of course. Most papers run astrology columns, even though the editors know the information contained therein is pure rubbish. Commentators write opinion pieces, and thus are not subject to the same journalistic rigor that the reporters are.

Then there are the letters to the editor. In a small town like mine, it’s often the best part of the newspaper (we have a weekly here) and this being Mt. Shasta, views expressed not only represent other opinions, but other nationalities, other planets, other universes, and sometimes other dimensions. Most small town papers get letters from the local pastors. Mt. Shasta’s paper gets letters from the local DEITIES. It being a small town, it’s not too unusual to look over the letters and realize that I know most, if not all, of the writers.

Small town tolerance. I write letters to the editor that are pretty much like my commentaries, only not as windy, as the paper has a 300 word limit. I usually get a fair bit of comment on those letters. A buddy of mine stopped by a few weeks back, and said he had a buddy who would be coming in to have me design a logo for his business. Seems he saw a letter to the editor from me, mentioned it to my buddy, and my buddy, discussing my letter, mentioned my line of work. This guy was in need of my services.

I thanked my buddy, and remarked that I was pleased that the guy liked my letter enough to give me his business.

"Oh, no," My buddy replied with a chuckle. "He hated your letter. Thinks you’re a son of a bitch. But he needs a logo."

Letters to the editor are where you are invited to come in and make an ass of yourself. While papers might fix spelling and grammatical errors and typos for the sake of legibility, they leave the content alone, making only the editorial decisions that the letters are not libelous or actionable.

But accuracy is not required of the letter writers.

A case in point was a letter to the Sacramento Bee yesterday. It started out, "So 70 percent of Americans see no connection between 9/11 and Iraq?"

When you see a letter with a gloriously wrong opening line like this, you can feel pretty certain that whatever the author goes on to say, it’s going to be interesting, whether it makes a lick of sense or not.

In this case, the letter writer went on to mention Manhattan District Judge Harold Baer, who, back in May, ruled that "Iraq provided material support to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group al-Qaeda for the September 11, 2001, attack and is liable to pay $US104 million in damages to two victims' families."

Pretty hefty finding for a small-time muni judge, especially considering that it was only a hearing. It’s a pretty safe bet that wherever Osama bin Laden is, he’s not in the judge’s jurisdiction.

Baer also found the Taliban, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, al Qaida, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and the Republic of Iraq liable back in March. He even put an ad in the paper saying the court case was being considered, and when nobody showed up to respond to it, he made a default judgement.

You gotta admire a judge who boldly takes popular political stands that have no hope of reaching a productive result. No showboating for that boy!

But wait! It wasn’t a popular decision! Remember? Seventy percent of Americans saw NO link between Saddam and 9/11! Wow! What a brave judge!

I bet that even though he’s now been contradicted in the past week by Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and even George himself about that Saddam 9/11 link, he won’t revisit his ruling.

The letter went on to recreate the long-discredited urban legend about Salman Pak, the so-called "terrorist training ground" that Saddam was allegedly running in a part of Iraq that, urm, Saddam didn’t control, and followed that with the recitation that 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if Clinton hadn’t lied about Monica Lewinsky.

An interesting letter. Obviously, the letter writer heard about the suppressed "last transmission" from the jet that hit the north tower, in which a voice shouted in Arabic, "Curse Bill Clinton! If I cannot have Monica’s lips wrapped around my manhood, then nobody deserves to live!"

And here you thought 9/11 had something to do with international politics. It was Monica’s "talents" all along.

So if you are a parent, and you hear your young daughter talking about "getting her presidential kneepads," sit down and talk with her right away, lest she too follows a course of action that could result in thousands of innocent people being killed.

And perhaps, some day when she’s all grown up, she, too, might write a letter to the editor.