Anti-American attack

Was anyone else bothered by Philip Martin’s column on Independence Day? Martin picked this date to delve into an historical footnote on the scurrilous opinions and defamations of James Callender against Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and George Washington.

Martin took the liberty to refer to Callender as an “attack dog” for Jefferson because of Jefferson’s support of Callender long before the arguably nastiest election in our nation’s history. Upon inauguration, Jefferson called for civility and tolerance, thereafter repudiating Callender as being too radical. Martin apparently felt it necessary to highlight Jefferson’s hypocrisy to fault him while choosing to completely ignore anything that Americans have to be so thankful for from the author of the Declaration of Independence and great president.

I believe Jefferson’s ideas are the antitheses of the views of the historical and economic dunces of modern-day liberalism. To tear down one of the most important men to our nation’s founding reveals Martin’s true character—one who rejects American exceptionalism and disdains what the founding fathers provided us.

That the Arkansas DemocratGazette would let this less-thanmediocre “columnist” spew his not so thinly veiled anti-Americanism on the Fourth of July is a sad testament to the downfall of what was a once beacon of reason.

NEIL DEININGER Little Rock