Kofford should rethink politics
I know that Bret Kofford can write well. He has written many interesting and thoughtful columns about such things as education, film, literature, and travel. However, when writing about politics, he cannot control his inner Mr. Hyde, and he viciously and hypocritically resorts to hateful name-calling and derision.
Consider Mr. Kofford’s April 26th column in which he sternly criticized Bill O’Reilly as someone who “demeaned those with whom he disagreed,” and “called names and placed derisive labels on all who disagreed with him.” Mr. Kofford also attacked Tucker Carlson as someone who “likes to mock anyone he thinks is his lesser,” and who “doesn’t argue points as much as make derisive remarks about and to his opponents.” Astonishingly, however, in the very same column Mr. Kofford describes the President of the United States as the “orange man”; states that a parrot is smarter than Sean Hannity; and calls Tucker Carlson a “pudgy, prep-school-educated rich boy.” The dissonance between Mr. Kofford’s (feigned) opposition to name-calling and derisiveness, and the fact that he himself relishes in employing those very devices, reveals his striking hypocrisy.
Furthermore, the hypocrisy which permeates Mr. Kofford’s April 26th column is not aberrational for him. On Aug. 19, 2015, he devoted his column to criticism of then candidate Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson, and Senator Ted Cruz, for having called people “dummies,” “total losers,” “slobs,” “psychopath,” or “liar,” and for Trump’s making fun of a person’s weight problem. I responded to that column, but not to defend Trump, Carson, or Cruz. Instead, I pointed out Mr. Kofford’s hypocrisy, since he himself had previously misused his column to demean those with whom he disagrees politically, calling them “rabid,” “lunatics,” “rat bastard,” “babbling buffoons,” “narcissist,” “jelly belly,” and “fat fellow.” I stated that Mr. Kofford would better serve himself, the ideas he believes in, and the readers of this newspaper, if he ceased the name-calling, and presented thoughtful and reasoned arguments instead. Sadly, as the reader can see from his recent column of April 26th, Mr. Kofford has chosen to continue along the low road of hypocrisy and hate. NEIL GERBER
El Centro