DISTORTED DEMOCRATS

Former Democrat Party chairman Robert Strauss was proud of the new candidates of the Democratic party. So was I. At last, candidates for president would talk on important, troubling issues--issues that Rosenberg and other representatives of the press spread as smart-aleck reportese: Look, readers, aren’t I cute and sophisticated?

What are they looking for? The show, the carnival, the gaffs? It is such reporting that drives our political process to inane madness. Most don’t vote now--are they trying to turn the rest of us off also?

How can Rosenberg humiliate our democratic process by suggesting that a candidate could leave the meeting, go to his hotel room, fondle his teddy bear and suck his thumb? How the candidates hold their hands? Who looks more often into the camera?

Rosenberg, whom I usually admire for his maturity, ends his “review” by rating the candidates on: 1--funniest, 2--unfunniest, 3--best and worst communicator, and 4--most like an anchorman.

Rosenberg should have added a fifth: dumbest--and named himself.

JOSEPH SIMON

Malibu