DEEP SOUTH

I am a great fan of your section, but I must admit to being confused by Patrick Goldstein’s article, “Steal Magnolias” (Nov. 24).

Goldstein writes that the parallels between media events of today and those of the South in the 1950s are “striking,” details how George Wallace and Nicholas Katzenbach staged a media event and suggests that Southern politicians inspired Roger Ailes. But then he praises the same period and place for its genuineness and spontaneity and bemoans today’s politicians for “contriving” images.

He writes that in the period, “politics mattered,” but then goes on to heap extravagant praise on a book whose central point, at least on my reading, was that democratic representation did not matter one iota at the time.

As someone who calls New Orleans home, I was mystified at how Goldstein could write that racist and malicious politicians like Wallace, Jim Folsom and Lester Maddox, God help us, made “politics worth watching.”

Goldstein must not have seen the damage these men did to their own people, or he would not have been so amused by their “antics.”

MARIE PRICE, LOS ANGELES