Democrats in Midwest

Re “Be Still, and Feel America’s Oneness,” Commentary, Dec. 20: While Norah Vincent makes the important point that Americans’ commonalities outweigh our differences, she also buys into a few stereotypes and inaccuracies about certain parts of the United States, especially the Midwest. Yes, T.S. Eliot was a Midwesterner, but he was from St. Louis, an urban center where even in Eliot’s time one would be hard-pressed to find the “dilapidated barn in the middle of a field” to which Vincent refers.

She also mentions returning to her native Michigan and seeing the “ ‘red’ America, the states that election night television colored in for Bush.” Well, she might see it on her way there from New York, but Michigan went for Gore, as did other Midwestern states: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

G.M. Ring

Burbank