Thumbs Down To The Sun Gazette

We enjoy our lively Arlington weekly newspaper, the Sun Gazette, which keeps us up to date on local items ignored by the Washington Post and other local media.

The Gazette editorial page likes to give thumbs up and thumbs down to various people, projects, organizations--and especially the County Board. Nothing wrong with that. But somebody needs to give the Gazette a thumbs up--or down--on occasion.

Today, we give the Gazette a thumbs down for publishing a lengthy "letter to the editor" from none other than THE EDITOR. It'd be one thing if they had nothing else to publish, but right below the letter from Gazette Managing Editor Scott McCaffrey is a little statement saying the paper "receives more letters to the editor than it can print in each week's edition."

So why give the letter space to McCaffrey, who presumably could've ginned up a story, or a thumbs up editorial, to make his rather obvious point, which is that Arlingtonians can boost the local economy by shopping locally.

The Gazette should feel free to give us a thumbs down as well--we're sure (as some commenters have been quick to point out) that we've said some dumb things!