Writing Letters to the Editor that Get Published

Imagine that we liberals get many pungent and provocative letters published, such that letters from right-wing-kooks become a smaller proportion of those published, people become aware of our views and realize that there are lots of us in our area. To do this, we must learn to write letters, which our newspapers publish and which present our views clearly.

Send letters to the:editors of the 3 major King County newspapers as follows:
Seattle Times – opinion@seattletimes.com
Seattle PI – editpage@seattlepi.com
King County Journal – letterstoeditor@kingcountyjournal.com

For the subject: Please publish this letter. Your name Your phone number
After the letter, your name, address and phone number.
At the bottom of letters to the Seattle PI, put: This letter will not be sent to the Seattle Times.

My experience is that letters are most likely to be published when they:

  1. Are timely: Respond quickly to a conservative event or misstatement, or other news topic.

  2. Focus on one topic.

  3. Keep it short. Don’t present much detail or evidence--just enough that the reader recognizes the issue and your response.

  4. Present a sensible alternative understanding, often through analogy.

  5. Create memorable phrases often through slightly changing a cliché or conservative phrase: ‘job tax’, ‘leave no person behind’, ‘crony corruption’, ‘privacy for people not government’, ‘repugnant party’, ‘repulsive party’, ‘uncompassionate conservative’).

  6. Portray the conservatives, their statements and actions to be ridiculous.

  7. Don’t be an angry victim, be a sensible happy observer. Don't complain. Smile bemusedly or even sneer.

The following letters are examples of letters that have been published by Lake Hills Liberals:

Seattle PI 7/12/05 King County Journal 7/12/05 Not published Dave Thomas
No surprise that Democrats are calling for Karl Rove's resignation. Without Rove's dirty tricks, Bush couldn't have been elected dog catcher.

Seattle PI 10/6/05 King County Journal 10/6/05 Published 10/9/05 Dave Thomas
Have you noticed the increasing presence of Proud Liberals. We're proud because we work to obtain compassionate and competent government. There are more of us because more people understand that compassionate and competent government is what we need, but don't have now.

King County Journal 10/16/05 Published 10/27/05 Dave Thomas
Liberal Ideas
Responding to my letter, a writer suggested that liberals don’t have ideas about making government compassionate and competent. Try these.

Pay as you go instead of borrowing and spending. Restore budgetary sanity instead of starving government by rewarding campaign contributors with tax cuts and pork. Substitute a progressive revenue-neutral flat income tax applicable only to income above the medium. Increase competitiveness and employment by replacing the job tax (FICA) with a revenue-neutral value added tax (VAT), which would be no more regressive. Stop over-competing militarily and under-competing economically.

Reduce our national debt and increase productivity to keep social security viable instead of privatizing and reducing benefits. Spend 2% of our national production to provide effective efficient cost-controlled Medicare to all, give every child a well-paid great teacher in a fixed-up school and every full-time worker a living wage. Provide early learning programs to all who qualify, VA type vouchers for college students and life-long training funds. Replace our chaotic mess of training and income-security programs oriented to satisfying congressional power grabbing with standardized programs for all. Fund scientific advances to increase our competitiveness, create jobs and provide needed new technologies. Promote non-carbon based energy production and efficient energy use. Reward protectors instead of destroyers of our environment. Protect privacy for people, not privacy for government. Substitute bipartisan solutions for political homicide.

These are only a few of the many liberal ideas that conservatives fear to discuss.

Seattle PI 11/ 05 King County Journal 11/8/05 Published 11/13/05 Dave Thomas
The Republicans keep referring to the ‘tax and spend’ Democrats. It is a bum rap. Throughout years of Democratic dominance, our national debt declined as a percentage of national income. During the Reagan, Bush and Bush years, it surged due to tax cuts for the wealthy and surging spending for obsolete defense technologies, subsidies for campaign contributors and pork.

The Republicans continually refer to estate taxes as ‘death taxes’ and rail against these taxes which only affect a tiny minority of wealthy people. They never refer to ‘birth taxes’ which are our newborn’s share of our dramatically increasing federal debt under Republican administrations, which these future generations must pay off with interest.

Let’s reduce the birth tax, as occurred during the Clinton administration, by replacing the ‘borrow and spend’ Republicans, who increase government spending, while vowing to starve our government’s ability to be competent and compassionate.

PI 11/21/05 Published 11/28/05 King County Journal 11/21/05 Published 11/24/05 Dave Thomas
Time to Become a Liberal Have you become a disgruntled conservative, unhappy with the direction our Republican president and legislature are taking us? Huge budget deficits. Greatly increased government spending and employees. Incompetent cronies. Indicted officials. Bridges to nowhere and other pork. Incomprehensible hi-cost prescription drug legislation. Gutting our safety net, including pensions, health insurance and illness-produced bankruptcies. High gas prices. Self-appointed global police in Iraq with mounting casualties. Torturing prisoners. Threats to our civil liberties. Unregulated immigration.

You might consider becoming a liberal. Return to balanced budgets, fair taxes, smaller more competent government, an excellent economy, a viable safety net, promoting efficient use of sustainable energy, protecting our environment, supporting new scientific breakthroughs and new technologies, global respect through maintaining our alliances. Become a proud liberal.

Seattle PI 12/6/05 King County Journal 12/6/05 Published 12/11/05 Dave Thomas
We often hear a voter say ‘I vote for the best candidate regardless of his or her party affiliation.’ But, a legislator’s most significant vote is for his or her party to provide the leadership of the house or senate.

Thus Republican house members (no matter how well they may vote on some issues) have put Tom Delay in a position to turn our government into a gigantic protection racket, denying companies access to government unless they provide campaign contributions only to the Republican party and only hire Republican lobbyists. Under Delay's leadership, our government has become the most monetarily corrupt in history.

One example is Congressman Dave Reichert, whom Tom Delay rewarded by giving him such extorted campaign money. The best candidate is the one who belongs to the most honest party.

Seattle Times 12/9/05 King County Journal 12/9/05 Published 12/15 Charlotte Cowling
Let’s try to connect the dots. A 2005 Public Health report indicates that the quality of life for low income King County families continues to deteriorate. Declining incomes. 20% of residents earn less than a living wage. Higher proportion of children living in poverty. Less affordable housing. Fewer families with health insurance. 8.7% of all residents sometimes run out of food. But incomes for the wealthiest are increasing.

Another survey reports that 88% of Americans think political corruption is a serious problem. Our Congressman Dave Reichert votes for $20 billion tax cuts on stock dividends and capital gains. Reichert also votes to reduce financing by $51 billion for Medicaid, food stamps, farm subsidies and enforcement of child support. Tax cuts for rich campaign contributors and program cuts for the poor. Do these dots suggest a pattern of corruption?

Seattle PI 12/15/05 King County Journal 12/15/05 Published 12/20/05 Dave Thomas
I can hardly believe he did it. And so rapidly. Since World War II, our United States has been the world’s culturally, economically, politically and militarily dominant country. With less that 5% of the world’s population, this unnatural situation could not last forever.

But under only 5 years of President Bush’s leadership, we resisted efforts by virtually all other nations to cope with global warming, to establish an International Criminal Court and to discourage us from our vigilante invasion of Iraq. We have violated human rights through torture and secret detention of prisoners. We have failed to respond rapidly to assist our Katrina hurricane victims. The gap between our rich and our poor has increased. World opinion has shifted against us. We have greatly depleted the human and technological resources of our military. We have become the world’s greatest debtor nation. How quickly we have fallen, through these and many other actions of the Bush administration.

We don’t need to be dominant; but we don’t need to fall so far and so fast. It is time to change our direction.

King County Journal Published 12/19/05 Tome'-jo Trujillo
Congressman Dave Reichert has just voted to extend the Patriot Act. Why?

I am 31 years young, have a wife and two young kids and can't understand the amount of fear and loathing for American citizens that must exist for someone to support this act. The provisions are draconian and unnecessary to ensure the safety of our communities; the only circumstances wherein these infringements upon our personal liberties could be plausibly necessary would be if our government ceased to honestly represent the people's best interests.

In such a political environment it would be in everyone's best interest for the politicians to step down rather than implementing communist- and dictatorship-style surveillance measures and witch or rather 'eco-terrorist" hunts. Are we living in the 1950s here or is this the land of the free and home of the brave?

I could quote many of our founding fathers in support of replacing a government that ceases to represent the people and rather attempts to control them, but I expect that they have already been quoted. I guess I just feel betrayed by Dave Reichert and am now suspicious of his allegiances as well as his methodology.

Perhaps he is a well-meaning strict paternalist of some sort. We are his equals, though, and not his children.

Seattle PI 12/19/05 King County Journal 12/19/05 Published 12/25/05 Charlotte Cowling
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently said that President Bush can violate the law limiting surveillance of American citizens by our National Security Agency because the law is outdated. Who decides when a law is outdated? Can the rest of us disregard old laws?

Seattle PI 1/8/05 not published Dave Thomas
Congressman Dave Reichert boasts of securing 70.7 million dollars for 8th District projects, which equals $108 for each of our 655,000 residents. This is significantly less pork than was obtained on average by other Congressman. Some of the projects extend beyond our 8th District. Reichert was not the only person responsible for securing this money.

Many of the programs were of a purely local nature (i.e. law enforcement, education, a welcome center) that conservatives argue should not be federally funded. What has Reichert done to wean us from this irrational pork system, which gives other districts more than ours, while raising our federal deficit and debt? It’s time for a change.

Seattle PI 12/19/05 King County Journal 12/19/05 Published 12/25/05 Charlotte Cowling
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently said that President Bush can violate the law limiting surveillance of American citizens by our National Security Agency because the law is outdated. Who decides when a law is outdated? Can the rest of us disregard old laws?

King County Journal 1/4/05 Published 1/22/05 Dave Thomas
I agree with the King County Journal's claim that their editorial pages offer a balanced variety of opinion that spans the political spectrum. Their balance is far better than that of radio and television. More than the Seattle Times and PI, the Journal presents opinions that get our brains thinking, instead of just getting our blood boiling.

As a proud liberal, I perceive liberal commentators and letter writers to be more likely than the conservatives to present factually based opinions. Conservatives are more likely to indulge in slander. I suspect conservatives would perceive the opposite. Unfortunately, both sides are more likely express what they oppose than what they favor.

King County Journal Published 12/31/05 Maurice E. Marler responding to Dave Thomas
The “proud liberal” who expects “liberal commentators and letter writers to be more likely than conservatives to present factually based opinion (whereas) conservatives are more likely to indulge in slander” seems to have his facts reversed. There has been a constant barrage of false charges against President Bush and his administration by op-ed writers and letter writers, the “he lied to us” accusation being perhaps the most prominent example of left-wing slander. Three more current examples: the attempts by liberals to vilify Judge Samuel Alito; the anti-DeLay campaign, even though Tom DeLay has not been found guilty of any impropriety, let alone a crime; and the recent letter smearing 8th congressional district Rep. Dave Reichert by insinuating improper receipt of campaign contributions.