Posted 6:32 AM by Gene

Before we spur a truckload of indignant letters....

Leaving aside the topic -- and I'd rather for now -- this has to be one of the stupidest lines ever to appear in an editorial. Where would a truckload of letters go? To clerks and interns, to roll their eyes as they glaze them scanning one semi-literate missive after another, and even if they're all well written, ninety-five percent of the letters get thrown out before they reach one of the six- and-seven digits, and the remaining five percent get sneered at soon enough, and only a woebegone two or three survive to challenge the hacks' ossified conventional wisdom, and often as not they agree with it. Heck the Post's managing editor says he doesn't read the letters page. He knows who's more important -- him and the fellow snobs who lead charmed lives telling us what to think. Must repeat it: news hacks have A CUSTOMER SERVICE PROBLEM.

P. S. Seeing that you use the word "cynical" twenty times, I'd like to go back through your history and read some of the BONERS you've pulled on the editorial page. I wonder -- how did blacks and Jews fare on the page before 1940? And how did you respond to JANET COOKE? With blather and bromides? Or did you respond at all?