We'll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, murders of great men, murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction!

While we were enjoying the beauty of the Oregon coast the jackasses that call themselves the Editorial Board at the state's one and only news daily the Oregonian were embarrassing themselves again by endorsing Gordon Smith's re-election to the U.S. Senate for a third term.

I assume this goes to the Oregonian's continued warped sense of "balance" since they had endorsed Barack Obama the day before. Objectivity requires splitting the baby right down the middle. They have readers in the blue and the red part of the state after all. Except they really don't...

Like most states Oregon has concentrated population areas around big cities surrounded by larger tracts of rural, sparsely populated counties and towns. The urban area of Oregon stretches down through the Willamette Valley from Portland to Eugene. This is the area of the state viewed with derision by many rural Oregonians because it's generally more progressive and tends to favor Democrats. It also happens to be the area where the bulk of the Oregonian's readership resides.

When the Oregonian pulls one of these bone-headed stunts such as endorsing George W. Bush over Al Gore or, more recently, publishing the anti-Islamic "Obsession" video and now endorsing Smith they're directly insulting their readers. They're saying to their readers that those that run the paper are smarter than those that pay to read it.

What business can survive by insulting it's customers in such a direct manner and on such a regular basis? If you went to a deli where you were told you couldn't have the tuna because "people who eat tuna are morons" would you go back to that place?

As the readership of the Oregonian continues to decline I'm sure they'll have all sorts of excuses as to what's killing their business. They'll blame the rise of cable/ satellite. They'll finger the Internet. They'll claim it's the rise of progressive partisanship made it impossible to sell papers.

The answer will be much simpler. They simply aren't catering to their customers.

Power - to make the multitudes run squealing in terror!

Just sent off to the Oregonian:

Dear Mr. Caldwell,

Like so many of your readers I avoid reading columns by David Reinhard as a general rule. Please understand it has nothing to do with Reinhard's political affiliation. There are many fine conservative columnists including George Will and Debra Saunders who put forth valid, intellectually honest arguments advocating the conservative position on the issues of the day.

No, the problem with Mr. Reinhard is that is writing is always predictably pedestrian and completely without nuance. Reinhard writes his columns as if he's playing a game a scrabble with the text of the daily G.O.P. blast-fax. Add an adjective here, move a sentence around there and voila! Send this baby to print. For most of us it's simply easier to skip Reinhard and go directly to the source.

Against my better judgement I opened my morning paper and decided to give Reinhard yet another chance. Maybe I was missing something in those hundreds of other columns I've read. Maybe he wasn't as intellectually squishy as I remember.

In reading today's column imagine my surprise to find out that Reinhard is not only just as bad but, surprisingly, has actually regressed in his skills as a columnist. I had to read through the column twice just to confirm that Mr. Reinhard was indeed making-fun of a twelve-year-old boy. A new low for someone like Mr. Reinhard who regularly feeds on the bottom.

The Living section of the Oregonian allows for annual voting on the comics pages where readers are allowed to choose which strips the paper will run and which strips they should drop. I would like to suggest you provide this same opportunity for the readers of the Oregonian's Forum section. I realize this would mean David Reinhard would quickly be out of a job, but a bright guy like himself would surely be able to land on his feet. Or pull himself up by his bootstraps or what ever.

I would hope that you will take my suggestion in consideration,

Sincerely,

Dean Vernon Wormer