Why the double whammy?

Why the double whammy?

Any responsible newspaper must publish the work of writers with different values, perceptions and recommendations for beneficial change. We need to read the views of columnists we may not agree with — as an old saying puts it, our goal must be to “eat the fish and spit out the bones.”

That said, I feel called to question the decision to put diatribes by both George Will and Cal Thomas on facing pages in The Vindicator of Dec. 13. Either would have been enough to remind us that the far right detests President Obama and that some columnists think that they can read his mind.

Cal Thomas consumes the first half of his piece telling readers how much he was paid between ages 14 and 37, in a futile attempt to undercut issues relating to staggering inequities in the U.S. today. He wastes our time with this unsupported 36-word sentence: “Income ‘inequality’ is a part of the greed-envy-entitlement philosophy promoted by liberals who want to addict more people to government and entice them to vote for the party that is effectively buying their loyalty.”

George Will shows once again that he has the art of the verbal sneer down pat, by opening his essay with this self- righteous sentence: “The education of Barack Obama is a protracted process as he repeatedly alights upon the obvious with a sense of original discovery.”

Will often begins his pieces with a largely irrelevant paragraph that seems intended to show readers how educated and worldly he is. In the present work, that objective is met with some words in the fourth paragraph about sauropod dinosaurs.

I could have learned more about the real world by flipping back to the comics page and reading Zits.

Robert D. Gillette, Poland