My First Hate Mail Letter to the Editor.

This didn't get put in the online version, but I post it here for you all:

Columnist should call whine-1-1

Dear Editor,
What happened to the greats? What happened to the writers who peeved us but also made us chuckle? It used to be a weekly pleasure opening up the opinion section and getting a wide variety of views transmitted with keen wit and by such names as Ryan Sabalow, Jory John, and Sarah Knowlton. This year all I read is pretentious whining, especially from a Mr. Robert LaHue.
Robert, I realize this is going to be awkward since I sit right across from you in class--where, curiously, you've barely uttered a word all semester--but I'm sick of this, man. All you do in your column is bitch and complain about everyone and everything you don't like (as a lover of cultured milk enzymes, I take particular offense to the comment you made Sept. 1 about cheese being a stupid topic to talk about), and your Superman/Kryptonite analogies aren't funny, either. Recently, however, you've moved beyond cliches and inconsequential nitpicking. Now you're distorting facts. In you criticism of John Kerry during the first debate, you claim, "I'm also wondering how Kerry knows Osama bin Laden is in Afghanistan, when the coalition forces commander in Afghanistan says he's not." If you had been watching without bias, you would have noticed what Kerry acutally said was that bin laden became trapped in Tora Bora during the Afghanistan campaign but, because Bush failed to send in enough American troops to finish the job, he got away and is now missing. Whether bin Laden really was in Tora Bora at that time was debatable, but kerry never said bin Laden is still in Afghanistan, as you claimed. Get your facts straight and don't mislead the public like our commander-and-thief.
Ironically, you ended your column with "(The debate) was everythhing I expected: name-calling, finger-pointing and trash-talking..." well those are exactly the kinds of things your writing does exceptionally well each week.
Cheers, and I'll see ya Thursday in class!

Alex Camarota
Senior, English

Comments to come, and you're going to love 'em...