To the editor:

In response to the Dec. 7 Saturday Column on honesty.

What should Lawrencians think when the editor of the local newspaper does not tell the truth?

What should the community leaders think when the editor of the local newspaper does not tell the truth?

How can a person have confidence or certainty that he or she is being told the truth on other matters and issues?

When the editor’s commentaries are filled with rhetoric, distortions, deceitful analysis and political bias, what are we to think? Shouldn’t the No. 1 priority of any responsible journalist be to tell the truth?

Editor Simons, when you point your accusing finger at my president, note that three fingers are pointing back at you, and your commentaries are at least as egregious as what you are accusing my president of doing.

Yes, Mr. Editor, I do expect the present leader of my political party to do all that he can to elect Democrats to the House and the Senate and to appoint Supreme Court Justices who have integrity and competence. Isn’t that what you would want the leader of your political party to do?

I suspect what the editor really fears regarding the Affordable Care Act is that it will succeed and that the great majority of Americans will approve of affordable, quality health care and the economic security that will follow, despite all of the efforts by his political party to undermine the law with a substantial absence of truth-telling.

I am not comfortable with you, Editor Simons, adjudicating the honesty of my president, given your relationship with truth telling. And certainly re-adjudicating, again, old business does not get us very far. I think what we have here is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

So, I ask, “On a scale of relative importance, how important is honesty for” journalists?