Letter to the Daily Record Editor

Sorry I missed last week's poll question. "Does President Obama have the country headed in the right direction" . Who wrote "An unpopular president" as the poll result? (1/29/2010) What are the 250 other comments? Will you post them online? Are they as "venemous" (your word) as the ones you selected? I particularly take offense at the Communist = Democrats paragraph. Are you expecting venom back? Is this what sells newspapers and TV ads? Is journalism bankrupt too? Are these angry folks heading our country in the right direction? (Another poll question, perhaps?)

Next week's questions: What is the most pressing concern of the country? In my mind, the big looming "something else" is the kind of venemous comments you (and we) repeat that prevent us from working together to do the right thing when it comes to Jobs, Housing, Afghanistan, Health Care and other critical issues. We can't get the job done over the shouting. It's time that quiet, concerned, patriotic and courageous folk (and politicians) begin to question this posturing and courageously work to get the job done.

Peggy Guttieri

Wooster

Letter to the Editor - Balanced Reporting?

Even though I remain an ardent supporter of President Barack Obama, I concede that facts are facts. In its Friday, January 29, 2010 editorial, The Daily Record accurately stated that the Obama-Biden ticket carried neither Wayne County nor Holmes County in the 2008 general election. McCain-Palin received about 56 percent of the Wayne County vote, Obama-Biden about 41 percent. The results in Holmes County were even more disparate; McCain-Palin 69 percent to Obama-Biden’s 28 percent. The area is conservative and predominantly Republican. We know that.

So, it was not surprising that this week’s Daily Record poll question, “Does President Obama have the country headed in the right direction,” “Shows a growing disaffection with the President.” 80 percent of the 250 respondents expressed a negative opinion. Those are the facts.

But, The Daily Record then went beyond the facts. The uninformed, misguided and inaccurate comments of several respondents were faithfully highlighted. Those comments appeared to have been taken directly from the “Tea-Baggers’” talking points. What disturbed me most was the total absence of any balancing comments from the 20 percent of the respondents who answered positively. What happened to fair and balanced reporting? Yes, it was an editorial, but it was reporting poll results. The poll minority’s comments were omitted, as if there had been none. To add insult to injury, an anti-Obama, anti-Democrat editorial cartoon accompanied the editorial column.

Daily Record, you can do better. We expect better.

Don Clement

Wooster

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I think stimulus was key to the 4th quarter. It was really critical to business fixed investment because there was a tax bonus depreciation in the stimulus that expired in December and juiced up fixed investment. And also, it was very critical to housing and residential investment because of the housing tax credit. And the decline in government spending would have been measurably greater without the money from the stimulus. So the stimulus was very, very important in the 4th quarter. Link

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