Editor, The Smithfield Times:

In the Aug. 19 issue, your publisher emeritus in his “Short Rows” piece was, in my opinion, disgraceful.

John Edwards has always fit the mold of the typical liberal newspaperman. But with this piece he elevated his journalistic views to something more in line with the New York Times and the Washington Post. Truth and fact simply do not matter.

I don’t want to have lunch with Mr. Putin either, but my friend John Edwards has become so paranoid that he does not want to take a flu vaccine because Russia might have tampered with it? And we all will get poisoned? Admittedly Putin has killed off thousands, but nowhere near the millions the Chinese have killed off, not to mention the virus from China that just in the last few months has killed off millions around the world while wrecking world economies, too. Maybe Mr. Edwards would be happy with a shot of the Chinese flu vaccine.

As I remember, since before President Trump took office there were accusations about Russian meddling in our elections, and it was Trump’s fault. It all proved to be a hoax. And after a 2½-year, multimillion-dollar so-called investigation, they found nothing. But Congress impeached him anyway. To what end? The Senate did not come even close to finding an impeachable offense.

The Russians and Communist China are going to meddle in our elections again this year as they have for many presidential elections. But their meddling will not be near as bad as the election meddling we will have with the new election rules being implemented by Democrats in Washington this year: mailing out paper ballots to everybody, registered or not, living or dead, current occupants, unclaimed ballots available for all those just waiting to forge enough ballots to assure Mr. Biden’s election.

Our post office System is terrible, bankrupt and getting worse by the day. They have their people working overtime delivering junk mail seven days a week and losing volumes of business every day to the internet. Will all these millions of paper ballots help their problems? I think not. But, no one has fixed any of the problems and I hope our newly appointed postmaster general will. At least let’s give him a chance.

I have enjoyed reading the Short Rows pieces in your newspaper for many years and John’s books of “Short Rows” pieces as well. I hope Mr. Edwards will publish another book of “Short Rows” Pieces, but I sincerely hope this Aug. 19, 2020, piece will not be included.

Frank Hall

Smithfield