Columnists fail to persuade

To the editor:

If David Harsanyi and Walter Williams are fair representatives, the conservative intelligentsia is in a parlous state.

Harsanyi uses public opinion polling and factoid snippets of the agreement between Iran and six nuclear nations, snatched out of context, to build a 'case” against that international accord. Harsanyi fell obediently into the partisan line coming from the GOP congressional 'leadership.”

Then there's Williams, who strains at minutiae to justify the attempt by 'the slave power” to rip this country apart. Williams needs to read Alexander Stephens' 'Cornerstone of the Confederacy” speech, and every secession ordinance passed by slave-state legislatures, to gain a complete picture of why the Civil War was fought.

If done honestly, historical 'revisionism,” or re-seeing the past to change how we interpret it, is vital and necessary. Done dishonestly, revisionism can only impede discussions about the past.

Jeff Klinzman

Coralville