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Show The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Sunday,March11, 2001 Right-Wing Columnists Have BeenInfected With the Clinton Virus, Kill Their Column BY RHEAD S. BOWMAN In a December opinionpiece, Darrell Prows complained about the Michael Kelly, Cal Thomas, and ‘Thomas Sowell columns, arguing that they are little more than hate-filled rants against Democrats and the Clinton-Gore type liberals and should therefore be discontinued by The Tribune. He uses words like idiot, stupid, and dishonest to describe these columnists and their ideas. Most reasonable people will no doubt agree with him on this. However, the columns continue to run, spewing outtheir usual blather. This leads to an important questién. Why would The Tribune editors continueto feature these colum- nists, especially when there is angther paper in town whose editors and owners seentto favor right-wing drivel? I have given this question considerable thoughtand have arrived at the following conclusion: Inthe spirit ofpublic service, the editors would like to give Triburie readers an opportunity to learn just how dumb and ridiculous some people can be. Still, Ihave to wondef. Why would we need a lesson in mindlessness nationally syndicated columnists when it can, so easily learned in our own backyard? Remember, welive ina state where many. see the need for a Porn Czar, where others think it is beneficial to drill holes in their skulls (tolet evil spirits. escape?), where others run for president because they believe they have been anointed to “save” the Consti- tution (he probably would benefit from a hole drilled in his skull), where still others want to maintain Utah’smilitia to defend againsta possible invasion by the Mexican Army (Tribune, Jan 17), where a southern Utah community passes a gun ordinance thatrequires all citizens to possess'a firearm (Tribune, Jan. 21; this should prove especially beneficial when the Mexican hordes invade our “pretty great” state), and where large numbers ofour citizens recently voted for a person whocan say things like the following and pride himself onhis thoughtfulness: “The question we need to ask more often, is our children learning?” Or “We can’tallowterrorists andterrorist nationsto hold us hostile” and “Canada is one of our most important neighbors to the north.” Isuppose we mustrespectthe greater experience of theeditors in these matters. They seem to believe we will benefit by learning just how ridiculous somepeo- ple from outside our state can be as well. But I would like to suggest an alternative to Prowsproposal to drop the three columnists. Certainly they are the lowestof the low. But he doesn’t makeclear that even at that level there are degrees of stupidity. Surely Cal Thomas is the dumbest columnistin the nation. I recently received a newspaperclipping from my orother who lives in California. By chance, on theflip side of the article he thought I mightlike to read was a Cal Thomas column. He drew an arrow at Thomas and wrote, “This manis an idiot.” So there you haveit. Across the land clear thinking people are in agreement. Cal Thomas is the No. 1 dumb columnist! And arguably Thomas Sowell is a close second. So I would suggest occasion to give little thought to what he is saying. Typically, however,his colunins are filled with rightwing venom andimbecility. But ifwe must have one of the three,let it be Kelly. Andin theinterest ofequality between thesexes, it would be useful ifwe had a female who could bring to The Tribune opinion pages a level of brainlessness to that ofKelly, although hopefully someone who is not quite as ridiculous as Cal Thomas or Thomas Sowell. As luck would haveit, we have such a person in the form of Georgie Anne Geyer whose column is already carried by The Tribune. In Prowscataloging ofright-wing columnists, he seems to have overlooked Geyer. Perhaps it’s because she,like Kelly, at times seems somewhatintelligent and occasionally says something that has possible merit, although like Kelly, not often and mostly years ago prior to the Clinton era. A good example of her current mindlessness is a column in which she compares Clinton to Fidel Castro and some other world ‘leaders she despises, including the Ayatollah Khomeini(Tribune, Jan 16;the compari. wn with Castro is especially poor; the truth is that Fidel, in his youth, was a much better baseball player than Clinton everthoughtof being). Well, the Clinton Presidenty has ended andit is timeto reflect on it. Ofparticular interestfor the subject at oeis ones Se sary nists. years lenty long to draw some scientific conclusions on: Seon well know,scientists. throughoutthe 1900s aboutthepossible existence of a Clinton “virus” that wascapableofattacking and destroying the centers of rationality in the brains of certain susceptible individuals. It is now clear that conservative columnists are amongthose mostsusceptible to this deadly virus, probably because their centers of rationality are so poorly developed to begin with. Science is still “out” on the question of whether the “virus” is organic in nature with “brain eating” capabilities or merely sometypeof telepathic effect that short-circuits the synapses in the bi thereby crippling it. What is becoming clear, scientists believe, is that Clinton, at some considerable ice to himselfand in the noble spirit ofservice to others, deliberately unleashed this “virus” for the praiseworthy purpose ofhelping us to understand just how: dumbandridiculous the right’ wing can get. He has succeeded admirablyin this goal (Newt Gingrich, the House Managers,the four columnists above-many things come to mind here). But I think wecanagree there isstill much work to be done in this worthy undertaking and The Tribune can continue to makean important contributionhere. True, the situation is complicated somewhatby the election of Hillary Clinton to the Senate. Though probablynot as virulentas the Bill Clinton “virus,” there also seems to be a Hillary “virus” capable of devastatingeffects. Witness the complete destruction ofrationality in Rush Limbaugh! Still, for the purpose of the scientific understanding of mental impairment andright-wing malevolence it may be worthwhile to observe the Kelly and Geyercolumns fora time. that The Tribune drop these two blockheads and retain Michael Kelly’s column. Of the three, Kelly is alonein at least appearing on Rhead S. Bowmanis a memberofthe Southern Utah Universityfaculty and lives in CedarCity. LASIK SURGERY ONLY $999 PER Eve! All laser machinesare not the same. Norisall laser eye surgery. VISX Technology, the #1 laser in the world, minimizes the possibility of night vision problems. And fora limited time, you can have LASIK vision correction at the Laser Center of Standard Optical using VISX. 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