WEDNESDAY'S LETTERS: Readers Fire Back on Trudeau, Penis Slicing, White House Stonewalling and More

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, readers respond to recent stories on Garry Trudeau's latest provocations of the Bush administration, the White House's refusal to release documents relating to Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' past legal opinions, Mormon demographics in Utah and lots more.

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I saw the letter to the editor today [see below, third item] about Trudeau's cartoon, saying he was "whining". So I went back and looked at the article you wrote and his quote:

"Editors obviously have a responsibility to determine what's appropriate for inclusion in their papers," said the Universal Press Syndicate cartoonist. "The syndicate and I accept that from time to time individual editors may object to particular strips and decide to drop them. What's not acceptable to us, however, is for editors to alter the content of a strip and represent it as what I sent them. In most cases, changing the dialogue compromises its meaning or rhythm or humor. Sometimes, the strip no longer even makes sense. Who benefits from that? We'd prefer that an offending strip be dropped altogether."

How, exactly, is this whining? Would he find it acceptable for editors to arbitrarily rewrite the copy of a syndicated columnist which would change the tone and intent of the author? I seriously doubt it, and I don't know of any columnist who would stand for it. The editor's choice is to either run it or not run it, which Garry very clearly acknowledges and accepts as part of the business.

Then, of course, the letter writer, David Horchak, goes on to call Trudeau's work as "blatant one-sided Bush bashing". What this means is, Mr. Horchak recognizes the truth in Trudeaus's work, as he says nothing to refute the satire, only resorting to childish name-calling.

Wiley Miller

[Ed's Note: Wiley Miller is the author of the "Non Sequitur" comic distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.]

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Re: Salt Lake Paper Obtains Records Showing a Mormon Decline in Utah

It was amusing to see the Salt Lake Tribune pumping up its Mormon demographics story as though it had uncovered some rare information on church membership.

The real story, and one your readers might find more entertaining, is that the Trib probably scooped its rival when it published the data.

The Deseret Morning News publishes the church's membership figures for every state and country every other year in its Church Almanac. This time, Trib gets the jump on the next edition, throws in a little analysis, and bingo, an interesting demographics piece.

Doug LeDuc
Fort Wayne, IN

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Re: Trudeau Defends 'Turd Blossom' Reference

Trudeau is simply a comic strip author, and just as other comic strip authors get edited for content and story line or as reporters get edited by their bosses, Trudeau needs to accept this. An editor is responsible for the content of their newspaper and once Trudeau gets his 40 papers of silver his responsibility is done. He can whine all he wants about being edited and being in 1,400 newspapers but he needs to wipe his nose and quit crying. If a newspaper puts his little strip in the comic strip section he needs to accept this. If however, he is inserted in the Op-Ed section where his blatantly one-sided Bush bashing belongs only then can he complain about the editing of his opinion.

David Horchak

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I'm not offended, definitely NOT offended by Garry Trudeau's reference to Karl rove as "turd blossom". Loved your article.

Not offended, but impatient for change.

D. Greene
Southern State (VA)

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Re: Tuesday's White House Briefing

The exchange between "Dana" and Scott McClellan over the release of Reagan era documents was very interesting. To me there is really only one question Dana needed to ask Scott, and that is, "When did this cease to be a government of, by, and for the PEOPLE"? Why does the Bush administration get to hide records from the people that according to the "Freedom of Information Act" were supposed to be released long ago? McClellan's excuse that it is a "process that takes months to complete", should be worded to say, "It is a process that takes months for us to black out all pertinent information which might shed light on the corruption in the current administration."

They may be able to hide the truth from the American people, but they will have to answer to their own "God" for their crimes against humanity.

Rob Moitoza
U.S. Navy Veteran
Seattle, WA

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Re: Reporter Explains How He Covered Penis-Slicing Case

It is sad to hear that the reporter in the case only received emails from women sympathizing with Ruiz. I have a hard time believing that women are cruel by nature in the intent to hurt men anyway they can. It seems like all women when in trouble, always use the rape remark and blame all on men even though they are at fault. And to do something like this of cutting off a part of the human body over jealousy is sickening to say the least, personally I think that woman should have gotten the 20 years for her crime.

I have a son, and if a crazy woman decides to cut his penis because she is jealous because of something he may or may not have done is sick and wrong. What message do we send to our girls and boys? It is okay for a girl to hurt your son and other women will sympathize with you for doing it. You will get media who will humiliate your son over his tragedy to victimize him more.

If a man were to cut off the vulva of a woman, people would come out in shock and horror, demanding the maximum sentence for his crime. No one would ever make fun of the woman who was victimized. So you do have to wonder what is wrong with our society, women are becoming mentally sick, where we are always victims and can use this term as the means to get our way and hurt the opposite gender. Which is a shame since my son will have to live through this ill from our society.

Sincerely

Jennifer Pittwater

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Re: Kinsley Expected to Lose Top Edit Page Post, But Remain at 'L.A. Times'

Michael Kinsley has nothing to worry about. He can always find work writing for Fidel Castro's newspaper. Come to think of it, so can everyone else at the L.A. Times.

Rick Vasquez
Santa Clarita, CA

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Re: Pentagon Blocks Release of Abu Ghraib Images

When oh when are you supposed impartial "journalists" going to learn that your words and actions have consequences. Newsweek printed a false story about Quran destruction and 15 people lost their lives. But of course you're not responsible for that! These pictures are not YOURS by right or any other means if by printing them you inflame Muslims to react against our troops or civilian workers.

When the hell are you going to learn that your so-called zealous hunt for the truth -- or your version of it -- has consequences?

Michael D. Black