I learned in my high school civics class that there”s a difference between government censorship of free speech and editorial decision making by a newspaper. In his farewell letter, Mr. Al Duncan seems to have confused the two. Thankfully, he is free to exercise his First Amendment rights elsewhere.
Recently, the Harper”s Index had a very curious statistic ? the exact same sliver of right-wing extremists who falsely believe that President Obama is foreign born as there are left-wingers who believe that President Bush had prior knowledge or complicity with the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Duncan seemed to side with that right-wing fringe.
Mr. Dickson and Ms. Feder are to be commended for discontinuing Mr. Duncan”s column.
In his last piece, he misquoted whoever it was he quoted and even misspelled the President”s middle name, Hessian, not Hussein. Were Record-Bee readers to conclude that Mr. Obama was a Revolutionary War mercenary as well as a Muslim, as some claim? And if, in fact, he is a Muslim, would we return to the prejudice articulated in the 1960 election with JFK”s Catholicism?
I doubt that I am the only Record-Bee reader who believes that its editorial page”s intellectual quality and legitimacy have been greatly enhanced by encouraging Mr. Duncan to seek other forums to connect with the shrinking handful of citizens who share his views.
Thank you for Mr. Duncan”s long overdue departure.
Casey P. Nunes
CSU, Fresno
