Mock Politicians

While noting Steve Forbes' awkwardness, the staff fails to properly characterize him. He rivals Urkel as America's most visible nerd and has used a multi-million dollar television and campaign to force his geeky grin into homes all across the country.

The staff feels that such colorful language is inappropriate for the ed page. However, it is such cowardice that allows men like Forbes to slither into public office. The staff should learn from the tradition of H.L. Mencken, one of the most famous American journalists. On the occasion of William Jennings Bryan's death, Mencken compared him to a "dog with rabies," and once described Supreme Court Justice and Harvard son Oliver Wendell Holmes as having a "natural distaste and contempt for civillians, and a corollary yearning to heave them all into Hell." Few individuals, and almost no politicians, should be immune from mockery.