Does anyone else get sick of columnists, politicians and other public office holders cluttering up the letters pages of our newspapers? This one is a classic example…

Adam Rope (Letters, April 4) asserts that I did not oppose the interventions in Australian domestic politics by Tom Schieffer, the former US ambassador to Australia. This statement is untrue. For example, in my Herald column on March 30, 2004, I wrote that Schieffer “should understand that it is not the role of the US ambassador to interfere in the domestic political debate”. Mr Rope should do some fact-checking. Gerard Henderson Sydney

Source: Nothing but a wave of apathy in the wake of tsunami warning – Letters – Opinion SMH 5 April 2007

Poor old Adam Rope. He probably doesn’t have time to gather every column that this man has ever written and check the collected wisdom of Gerard Henderson (what a frightening task) to find every little reference, and has to rely on his memory. Adam probably has a real job. But Henderson is onto the keyboard in a flash to write in to the newspaper (the very same one that provides him weekly column space) to point out the error. [more]

But in the great scheme of things, did Adam’s error really matter? Were we all standing around the water cooler talking about Henderson’s article. The answer is no. Do WEE have time to check every seeming misrepresentation that Henderson makes about certain facts in his columns? No. It’s just part of the general cut and thrust of debate. No, it only matters on planet Henderson.

What makes this miserable, ungenerous action even more disappointing is that the letters editor allows such unimportant drivel to be published in the letters page. If Henderson wants to correct the record let him do so in his weekly column but don’t take up precious letters space where the voices of the great unwashed should be heard.

Then again, he probably realises that not as many people will read his protestations if they are included in his column – WEE find the letters page far more interesting that his biased, one-eyed opinions about politics in Australia.

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