With its endorsement of Al Gore (SN 10/30), The State News has once again shown its lack of critical thinking. The cliché “liberal media” is one that is often overused, but it will not go away until mindless editorials like this are no longer published.

In the editorials, the editorial board pretty much repeat word for word all the points highlighted in Gore’s dime-a-dozen stump speeches. Social security “lockbox,” potential pro-life Supreme Court justices - even Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s father - all have been mentioned more frequently during the last few weeks than “Why doesn’t Bobby Williams pull Ryan Van Dyke?”

The argument that voters should not vote for Ralph Nader in order to help Gore, which is mentioned in the editorial, is absurd. We have had such a strong push as of late encouraging people to quit limiting themselves to two-party politics and to embrace even the small parties if they fall in line with their views. I have even seen many letters in The State News about this. Telling people to not vote for Nader completely undermines this idea. How can we get away from two-party politics if the Democrats try to scare people away from a third party?

Instead of blindly repeating Gore word for word, the editorial board should use some common sense and analyze the effects of Gore’s proposed policies. And if I hear one more time how Bush’s tax cut gives more money to the wealthy, I will completely lose faith in the educational system of this country. Third-grade math tells us that if a person pays more dollars than another person in taxes he or she will get more dollars back with the same percentage change in both people’s tax rate. It is ridiculous to assume that people paying millions of dollars more in taxes should only get the same amount back as people paying a couple of thousand dollars.

Adam Sheridan
general business
administration senior