I always read the Back Page first and was so impressed by Rozanne Epps’ essay “Wishing Won’t Make It So” (Dec. 27) that I thought I would write to you commending her for writing such a fine article.
I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Epps that the inability to have confidence in our votes counting is the most important issue facing our democracy today. How can we “throw the bums out” if we can’t have fair elections?
But when I read on page 21 (“The Score,” Cover Story) that the incumbent U.S. representative from the 7th District was “unopposed” [see “Correction,” this page], as had also been written erroneously two years ago, I had to call attention to your repeated errors.
The ugliness is that, besides ignoring Democratic opposition, the issue contains writing that appears to be further slanted toward Republicans. The same article says, “Sen. George Allen fell by aligning himself with Bush.” From what I’ve read, it would seem that the main reason Allen lost is that his racism moved voters to vote for Webb (Webb even took the rural county in which Allen made the “macaca” remark).
Also in “The Score” — “A Democrat becomes a double-agent” — you fail to provide a most important revelation with respect to the funding of black schools by Congress. You correctly report: “Lambert still got his support for funding black schools from Allen. Just days after his embarrassing defeat, Allen helped push a bill through the U.S. Senate to increase funding to black colleges.”
You fail to point out that Allen did nothing to ensure that the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to increase funding to black colleges, and this bill was not passed in the House. Therefore Sen. Lambert’s support of Allen accomplished nothing — that is, he is a failed “double-agent,” detracting from the pro-Republican tone of the writing.
Shirley DeSimone
Richmond