I sincerely doubt that this will endear me to the SH!T-people, or get my letter published, but I had to get it off my chest:
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Wendy,
Yes, this all sounds very nice.
The statement I made in my letter, "this disinformation was simply found on the Internet somewhere and subsequently published as 'truth' without allowing any time for Mr. Regier to respond", was based directly on what columnist Mike Thomas wrote in his article in the 8/20/2002 issue of the Orlando Sentinel, titled "Regier 'crisis' falters when facts known" (URL: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-locmiket20082002aug20.column).
If you and your editorial board consider facts to be in such high esteem, perhaps a few minutes would have been spent by you, in your due concern, to check this source which I listed in my letter. Or perhaps you discount this source, considering Mr. Thomas to not possess any journalist integrity?
I must say you have certainly made getting a simple letter to the editor published more work that I would have ever imagined. Apparently, though, when negative statements are made regarding a member of Jeb Bush's administration, no such burden of proof appears to be necessary. In the case of the original letter to the editor which inspired mine, it appears that ad hominem attacks are equally given the wave-through.
I note that you have no comment to make regarding my statement about what your literary approach would be if Jeb had appointed a Muslim, rather than a Christian, to the DCF post. I had to laugh when I read Tom Lyon's op-ed in today's issue of the Herald Tribune, where he makes the obligatory mention of the extremism displayed by the Taliban when discussing his "tolerance" of Jerry Regier's religious beliefs, and then continues on to display his bias against anyone of Christian persuasion. Very predictable.
Sad to say, it would appear that the recent departure of Rosemary Armao on ethical grounds has done nothing to bring balance to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Joe Brower