LETTERS.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(Letter to the Editor)

It Starts In College

Brent Bozell hits the nail on the head about the media favoring Democrat and leftist views in "Media Gives Clinton A Pass, But Bush's Policy A "Mess' " (Viewpoint, Thursday).

While in college in the early 1960s, I felt The New York Times, Herald Tribune, Time, Newsweek and others were great sources of reliable information and analysis. I also thought the same about TV news shows such as the "Huntley-Brinkley Report." I guess it was right after returning from Vietnam that I began to question media objectivity, and now it's been about 30 years since I've read The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly.

It's been at least that long since I've watched the nightly news shows presented by ABC, NBC or CBS. They are filled with simplistic, misleading trash. A prime example of the propaganda is the Nov. 3 Newsweek cover headlined "BUSH'S $87 BILLION MESS."

Who reads or watches this stuff? If the audience is large, then it must mean that our colleges are doing a very effective job of brainwashing young people. At too many colleges, learning what is politically correct seems to be more important than learning critical thinking skills, factual history, science or math.

Well, I have three solutions. Give more money to Republican candidates. Give absolutely zero money to the brain-dead colleges, including my own, that cannot bring themselves to see the similarities between a Saddam Hussein and an Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin. And start sending your children to colleges that understand the relationship between capitalism and freedom.

James E. O'Brien, Maitland, Fla.