THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290004
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
Please work out a rating system for Guy Friddell's columns.
Maybe a ``GG'' - Good Guy - indicating stories about his dog frolicking in the Bay or the soul-inspiring beauty of crape myrtle trees; and ``BG'' - Bad Guy - to alert us that he is going to be whining about politics or public policy.
The March 24 Bad Guy column set about to show that two bigoted turkey hunters with a shotgun make proof positive that Governor Allen - Bad Guy's arch enemy - hates children and wants Virginians to wage war with concealed weapons. The fact that these two idiots were falling-down drunk while driving a 2-ton truck on a public road is apparently insignificant to Bad Guy.
The irony is that on the same page of the Metro section was the story of a white police officer - well-trained and required to carry - shooting a black man by accident.
Getting drunk is no accident. Driving drunk is no accident. Bigotry is no accident. No ``wise judges'' or armed police officers were there to stop those two drunk bigots when they decided to kill a black man just for fun. Bad Guy would wish it weren't so. Governor Allen would even the odds.
WILLIAM D. ROBERTSON
Virginia Beach, March 24, 1995 by CNB