Roger Pulvers' columns on trends in Japan over the past decades are good pieces of writing from a journalist who was actually there and knows what he's talking about.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for his April 29 Counterpoint, "Spare a Shudder in Memory of an American 'ism' That Lives On." Pulvers uses McCarthyism to make a sweeping condemnation of the collective American character, allegedly evidenced by some scare tactics used by the increasingly irrelevant Bush administration.
Any well-informed person knows that over 70 percent of Americans do not support U.S. President George W. Bush or his policies. I can't believe Pulvers is oblivious to this information. Perhaps he ignores it because it contradicts his agenda. Instead of a balanced analysis we are given recycled '60-isms of the sort once used by college boys to impress hippie girls. Pulvers would do well to use facts instead of tired leftist cliches. His recent Counterpoint reveals that the bias is not ours, but his.