Communicating Incredibility

This is journalistic subterfuge: “It’s been a bad season for Great Communicators, from Oral Roberts to Jim and Tammy Bakker to Ronald Reagan, who’s not as believable as he used to be. And now comes . . . Swaggart” (“Tears and Tape Show TV’s Power to Sway Millions,” by Howard Rosenberg, Feb. 24)!

Rosenberg dropped in a line about Ronald Reagan and never bothered to tie it in with anything. What does Ronald Reagan have to do with debunked or defrocked TV evangelists? Nothing!

You don’t have to be too clever to recognize this as an attempt to chip away at the integrity of a man who is as believable today as he was the day he was sworn into office. That’s a lot more believable than about 95% of your newspaper.

If you were to take an honest look, or even a casual glance at the distorted, slanted “news” you print, you would discover you have more “sins” to confess and forgiveness to beg for than all those “manipulating” scoundrels you denounce combined!

If it’s deception you deplore, I suggest you carry that conviction to the editing of your newspaper. You’d be a lot more believable--as you say our President used to be!

MARILYN E. MAURER

Simi Valley