Readers offer views on editing

To the editor:
Before I begin to address the issue I am thinking about, I would like to take time to thank The Commercial Review for printing every letter I have ever submitted.
You see, all my letters are hand-written and sometimes my thoughts go faster than my hand and I find I may spell words by the way they sound at the time, knowing full well later it was wrong. I catch some of them when I proof read what I have written, but I know I don’t catch all of them.
Other times I may have made my point more than once and did not do a very good job of editing my own writing when I thought about it later. I know my punctuation skills are terrible. So thank you Commercial Review for making me look a whole lot smarter than I am.
There have been times when something has been edited out, whether it was because of space or, as I said before, I made my point more than once. For whatever reason there was, I know it is the right of the editor to do so.
But when this has happened, I felt the context of what I had written was still in tact. So thank you J.R. and please don’t give me away when it comes to my writing skills.
In reference to the issue I mentioned above, I think I will let that go for another time.
Thank you.
Ralph Guingrich
Portland

Letter should have
run as written
To the editor:
I have been writing letters to the editor for over 40 years. While I often disagree with the overly abundant liberal commentary I have always praised the paper for its journalistic integrity and for the editor’s willingness to publish letters even when they challenge his point of view.
In all those years last Monday was the first time this paper took it upon itself to rewrite one of my letters. Some sentences were left out and others were changed. It would seem to me that if someone wants to write part of my letter they should at least add “edited by …” after my name so that readers know they are not actually reading the letter that I wrote.
I find it interesting that when a paper rewrites one of my letters they almost always leave out the parts that I feel are the most important. Perhaps it results from the difference between what liberals and conservatives consider important.
The paper printed this, “Recently Samm Quinn wrote a column in support of Roe V. Wade. She complains that ‘40 years later; people are still fighting the ruling and looking to politicians for change.’ What is particularly sad about that statement is the politicians they are looking to are judges. Everyone on both sides understands a change of even one Supreme Court justice could change the decision.”
But I actually wrote “Recently Samm Quinn wrote an OP-ED in support of Roe V. Wade. She complains that ‘40 years later; people are still fighting the ruling and looking to politicians for change.’ What is particularly sad about that statement is the politicians they are looking to are the dishonest judges who still support this unconstitutional ruling.
“Everyone on both sides understands that it was a political decision with no legitimate basis in the law and that a change of even one Supreme Court Justice could change the decision. It was the most divisive decision since Dred Scott invented a constitutional right to own slaves in free states. It was also based on the same judicial fraud, Substantive Due Process. And, worst of all, it has created a large political constituency for dishonest judges.”
What I wrote is important because it explains why Roe was illegitimate, the basis for the decision, why it has been so divisive and why pro-abortion advocates are so afraid it will be overturned. It also explains why democratic Senators who spend their lives arguing over the words in the laws routinely vote to confirm judges whose judicial philosophy allows them to rewrite the laws and the Constitution to produce politically correct results. In some cases these dishonest judges have even ruled that a law means exactly the opposite of what it actually says.
While talking about an exception for rape and incest the paper printed “While the left is always talking about reasonable compromise, Roe took compromise out of the equation.”
I actually wrote “While the left is always talking about reasonable compromise Roe made compromise unconstitutional. And that still leaves over 59 million babies who died for other reasons.”
Apparently those 59 million other babies are irrelevant to the debate. And the fact that Roe made compromise unconstitutional explains my position much better than the paper’s rewrite.
There were even more changes but I believe I have made my point. I sincerely hope J.R. will respond to this letter and let us know if this is now his official policy or if the Commercial Review will return to the more credible policy that has served it well for over 40 years.
Stephen Erwin
Portland
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Editor’s note: You've got a point, Steve. In the editing process, we unintentionally diminished the message you were trying to get across. Our policy of the past 40 years and more has not changed. We apologize if we in any way intruded on open and unfettered discourse. There's an old quote that's often attributed to Voltaire: “We may disagree with what you say, but we will defend to the death your right to say it.” Whether Voltaire said it or not is in doubt. What should not be in doubt is this newspaper's dedication to that principle.[[In-content Ad]]