Dear Editor,
It seems that a picture is worth a thousand words, especially in two editions of the East Tennessean (Feb. 9 and Feb. 13).
I won’t belabor the point – What’s up with the offensive right wing comics? Is this the way that the East Tennessean attempts to provide “fair and balanced” coverage of the Republican corruption scandals?
Susan Taylor wrote a great article about the dangers of having too much unilateral presidential authority – if the president doesn’t have to tell us what he’s doing in the interests of national security, then who will know if he’s breaking the law? Bush says we must trust him and “stay the course,” but our founders know that it is folly for people to trust people in power.
Yet, in the interest of providing “fair and balanced” news, we must let those who think it’s not illegal put a cartoon with the message: “All you people that are so concerned about your rights and the president’s illegal activity wouldn’t be so concerned if we were to have another 9-11.”
This is an extremely boorish and shallow point of view regarding a grave danger that affects everyone’s rights.
With regard to the comics, I know we can’t stop people from printing offensive comics, but I pray people will look for the evidence, look for the truth, in independent news sources – with all these shallow and biased cartoons, we might all have to depend on the Daily Show to say what’s really going on.
Brooks Lastinger

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