To the Editor:
Joanne B. Freeman (Op-Ed, Aug. 4) provides some interesting comparisons between 21st-century political “bunkum” and the 19th-century variety. But she doesn’t make an obvious point about the more recent variety: Every example she cites from this campaign involves an idiotic comment by a Republican.
Political idiocy today is asymmetric; it is found overwhelmingly in one political party. While Democratic candidates sometimes make misleading comments or exaggerate the truth, they almost never say anything as truly idiotic as what Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson—all cited by Ms. Freeman—have said.
ALAN ABRAMOWITZ
Atlanta
The writer is a political science professor at Emory.
Note from KBJ: This is the exact opposite of the truth. The overwhelming majority of nutjobs in politics today belong to the Democrat Party: Al Gore, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Bill DiBlasio, Charlie Rangel, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Jimmy Carter, and on and on and on. Good work, Emory University! You are hiring smart, disinterested, temperate scholars.
