Columnists all tilt to the right; try some balance

To the editor:

The Southeast Missourian's tilt to the right would overbalance an amoeba. It's not just your own editorials and the fulminations of David Limbaugh. You clearly choose national columnists -- Kathleen Parker, Mona Charen, George Will and Cal Thomas -- because they share that tilt, often to the point of redundancy.

Please broaden your scope. Dialogue and debate sharpen and inform opinion and fuel our democracy. The myriad colors of political and social thought in our great country are not represented in the Southeast Missourian. Yours is a monochromatic, one-dimensional newspaper. Should you include in your mix columnists such as Ellen Goodman, Robyn Blummer, Anthony Lewis, Maureen Dowd, Alexander Cockburn, Anna Quindlen and Molly Ivins, you would provide your readers with other viewpoints.

I am not so quixotic as to seek to influence your fundamental editorial bent. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, generally considered a liberal newspaper, nevertheless prints conservative columnists. Similarly, the Missourian can include more moderate and liberal opinion as well without harm. And in so doing you will give readers whose views may stray from your conservative party line a reason to read your newspaper.

Were the Southeast Missourian a ship, it would run in circles -- to the right, of course -- and then capsize. It is time to jettison at least some of your cargo of redundant scribes and bring aboard some weighty new columnists to more nearly balance the vessel.

LESTER GOODIN

Cape Girardeau