Update: Published, but hacked

So, my LTTE got into the paper but they edited it to make it read like a lobotomy victim wrote it. Here's what they published:

Cowards are eager to have government spy on them

America has been called the home of the brave. Recent letters to The News Journal suggest that cowardice has gripped the country. If our enemies hate us for our freedoms, then they must be smiling as they read how citizens offer to allow the president to spy on them, even illegally, if it will make us safer.

It's not at all clear that even with good intelligence this administration is competent to protect its citizens from harm, as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina made tragically clear.

Be brave and defend your liberties, even if you weren't using them anyway. If we offer up our liberty in return for safety, we will be neither the home of the brave nor the land of free. We will become a country of cowards, rushing into the arms of Big Brother.

Compare that to the original.

I guess in the future I'll have to ask that they publish letters as is or not at all. Better that than have it hacked up by an editor with a tin ear. They removed the Patrick Henry quote (which I thought was the best part), removed all the words I used to link the thoughts smoothly together, and changed some things to make it just dumber - the "president" spying instead of parts of the federal executive, like the NSA.

I've had other LTTE's hacked up this way - it discourages me from writing more, when the ones they do publish make it sound like I'm pounding my keyboard with a rock. Blech.