I don’t read local retired Press & Sun-Bulletin associate editor David Rossie’s weekly columns much any more. It’s painful reading someone who has the writing equivalent of Alzheimer’s as the little intelligence he has left evaporates into vapidness. But it’s like an accident–sometimes you can’t look away.

Today’s column in the P&SB is one such column. The pitiful (and I really do pity him) Mr. Rossie equates voting in the manner we have in this country for over 200 years–by secret ballot–with being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He also implies when you step into the polling booth to pull the lever, if you pull the lever for John McCain, you’ve just proven that you’re a racist. How sad and how far the once great writer has fallen. And how sad that the P&SB keeps running his columns. It shows their ineptitude.

The column, Right wing can’t abide unconformity (sic), is about conservatives who take issue with three writers who never were, nor pretended to be, conservative–but who have written more right-leaning than left-leaning columns over the years (Kathleen Parker, David Brooks and Christopher Buckley). Nevertheless, Mr. Rossie needs evidence for the fictions he attempts to spin. So he treats us to three strawman examples. Then for good measure, he proceeds to bash Evangelical Christians, as he does in every third column he writes. Yes, Mr. Rossie is a reliable Christian bigot and has been for years–but that’s OK with the P&SB. Say something about radical Islam and you’re sure to be fired over at the P&SB. But Christians? Always fair game.

After Mr. Rossie huffs and puffs his way to the end of this latest (in his mind brilliant) column, we imagine him raising his hands like Moses over the children of Israel. The crowd becomes silent. And Moses (aka David Rossie) makes his pièce de résistance in the final paragraph:

Meanwhile, Obama supporters are celebrating his rise in the opinion polls, everywhere from nine to 14 percent. But before they uncork the champagne, they should keep in mind that the curtain that closes off the voting booth serves the same purpose as the Klansman’s hood.

Wow! Such brain power. Such keen intellect. “Pull the lever for McCain in secret, and it will give you the same thrill as pulling a white sheet over your head.” Yes, I know he’s saying “secrecy” is the word that applies to both voting and the Klan. But by comparing our constitutional right to vote for whomever we want–in secret–with the odious Ku Klux Klan, he is implying that people who decide against the socialist (I would say Communist) Obama, and who enter the polling booth and throw the lever for John McCain, are bigots. I say, look in the mirror Mr. Rossie. Your own hatred and intolerance are profound.

Technorati Tags: David Rossie, Press & Sun-Bulletin, Ku Klux Klan, secret ballot, Christian bigotry