Ah, this one should be self-explanatory. Flipping, of course, is a rhetorical device in which the rebuttal takes the original author's own words and inverts the logic.
As many of my letters dealing with politics are of the conservative view, they seldom appear in print. It seems the space is reserved for the local liberal lips who day after day spew out their venom to chastise this administration.
I’ve always believed newspapers were supposed to be nonbiased. Given the content of so many letters and Chris Britt’s stupid cartoons, I find this untrue.
Bill Harmening would rather have 11 million illegals as opposed to an equal amount of Americans. I wish he had them; it would be interesting to see how he would feed and house them. (Athens isn’t that big.) Catherine Stoddard thinks we spend too much gassing up Air Force One. What did the Democrats use for fuel, corn cobs?
Here’s something for the (can’t accept defeat) liberals to consider. You lost the last two elections for two reasons: Al Gore didn’t know or even suspect anything and John Kerry didn’t know which side of the fence he wanted to stand on.
Sure, George W. Bush has made mistakes and the country is in a hell of a mess. How can you deal with foreign governments when the opposition here at home criticizes your every decision? Perhaps this war with Iraq was wrong. I’m sure glad that FDR didn’t ignore the warnings of Pearl Harbor just so he could have (his) war with Japan, aren’t you? The whole country bought that one.
I don’t know why I’m writing this, it will not be printed anyway. Maybe conservatives should seek a more nonbiased paper to subscribe to. (Now I’m sure it won’t be printed.)
My response:
Though not a member of the industry, I’m reasonably certain that two charges journalists will turn themselves inside out to disavow are of censorship and of bias.
That’s why, when a self-proclaimed conservative correspondent begins with charges of anti-liberal prejudice, his odds of getting printed just increased considerably.
But don’t mistake action and reaction for truth inspiring reform. While the accusation that the editors of these pages favor letters reinforcing their own allegedly liberal views might yield one published letter, the fact of the matter, or at least my suspicion, is that more negative than positive feedback regarding our political leaders is being received. It’s based on the simple concept that anger is motivating, and that right now forces opposed to the current administration are more likely to be angry than those supporting it.
To test my theory, go back to the late 90s when, to borrow the writer’s terms, conservative “venom” was “spewed” against former President Clinton several times the extent of the defensive responses. To apply the conservative’s reasoning, was it not downright unpatriotic for his detractors “to criticize his every decision”? Should the anti-Clinton letters even have been submitted let alone outnumbered the less outraged pro-Clinton ones?
But my point is if I were to write a letter that might prove my only opportunity to debate in an overwhelmingly left-leaning publication, I wouldn’t squander it misrepresenting another writer’s position on immigration; failing to explain the “anything” that “Al Gore didn’t know or suspect”; omitting the tactics Rove gladly resorted to to defeat Kerry, who refused to lower himself to that level; arguing so convolutedly about gas the reader can’t follow the logic; conflating Iraq with World War II; and appointing myself the apologist-in-chief for an administration which caused its own problems.
Of course, Mr. Britt’s cartoons ridicule whoever happens to be in power. That’s what they’re supposed to do.