Need better balance in columnists

To the editor:

As a lifelong Republican now supporting the Obama-Biden ticket, I must protest the extremist editorial campaign being waged on the Southeast Missourian's Opinion page. All but two of the national commentators regularly published use nearly every column to castigate Obama. And the Missouri apparently looks hard to find other far-right ranters.

The two exceptions are David Broder and Gene Lyons. Broder's recent commentaries are quite centrist. Lyons is apparently the token liberal on the Missourian's roster, but even he clearly dislikes Obama. Gary Rust and Jon Rust's jabs at Obama can be excused, since they own the paper, but the bias of others is hard to take. David Limbaugh is the most absurdly biased of the gang, but Jonah Goldberg, Paul Greenberg, Michelle Malkin and Cal Thomas are not far behind.

The Sept. 20 column by Ron Hart reached a new low. Hart's diatribe is focused mostly on the possibility that Obama had a poor academic record and questions his work as a community organizer. Hart suggests Obama is keeping secret the record of both these phases of his life. It is apparent Hart has not read Obama's book, "Dreams From My Father," which reports extensively on his work as a community organizer in Chicago. Hart also could discover from the book that Obama's acceptance at Columbia University was through a joint program linking that university and Occidental College, where Obama first enrolled.

Please, Missourian, give us better balance in your choices of columnists.

ROBERT FULTON, Patton, Mo.