Letters to the Editor

August 21, 2009

Limbaugh promotes an extreme point of view

To the editor:

I would like to express my disappointment in The Herald-Mail's running of the David Limbaugh column several times a week.

I feel a newspaper should present the facts in a nonpartisan manner, then help illuminate contentious issues by presenting various viewpoints. Ideally, this allows both sides to come to some kind of understanding, if not agreement, but it requires a willingness to talk across the divide with at least a modicum of civility and respect for other viewpoints.

For example, I don't usually agree with Kathleen Parker, but I read her because I can't always predict what she will say on any particular issue. These qualities are sorely lacking in Limbaugh's columns. He promotes an extreme point of view with overheated rhetoric, demonizes his opponents, distorts the facts and, in general, lowers the tone of the debate.

Unlike a blog or cable news show, which is intended to preach to the converted and to whip up their fervor, a newspaper traditionally attempted to foster informed discussion of issues and to produce more light than heat.

I feel that you are pandering to the worst elements of contemporary political discourse and should be ashamed of yourselves.

Peter Wechsler
Boonsboro

New columnists are solid additions to paper

To the editor:

Thank you for including columns by Charles Krauthammer and David Limbaugh in the newspaper. I appreciate reading a variety of writers, especially ones who reflect my own conservative views.

I see Krauthammer on Fox News regularly and believe he is a very intelligent gentleman. He does not appear biased in his opinions, either criticizing or giving credit to either "side" where warranted. He obviously gives a great deal of thought to whatever he says.

I also appreciate reading Cal Thomas and would like to see more of him.

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Sylvia Shives
Hagerstown

Government is not a predator

To the editor:

In his frenzied attack on the Democratic proposals for health care reform, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, forgot himself. He called the government a "predator." I assume he referred to that branch which he knows best, the Senate.

Having worked more than 40 years in several agencies of the executive branch, I never met a predator and would not, in my wildest imagination, consider those agencies predatory, whether headed by Republican or Democratic appointees.

Harold C. Craig Jr.
Emmitsburg, Md.

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