Sir, - Has Fintan O'Toole considered seeking treatment for his obsession with Dana? He is beginning to display the characteristics of a stalker, although his pursuit of this particular presidential candidate is neither stealthy nor subtle. The crude lampoonery of the mid-August column with which he opened his campaign against Dana angered many people and that anger was not confined to those who share her religious beliefs.
Nevertheless, Mr O'Toole, like all those with a fixation, is persistent. In a week in which there was a major environmental crisis in south-east Asia, your newspaper deemed a trite report on Dana in New York worthier of prime position on your front page.
What could have provoked such febrile interest in Dana's activities? Had she been seen dancing with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? Had she been identified as the person on the grassy knoll in Dallas on the day President Kennedy was assassinated? By any chance could she have been the driver of the mystery car in the Alma Tunnel in Paris on August 31st? The facts are much more banal. She had done nothing more exciting than to attend a dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, where the guests included American ecclesiastics, nuns and prominent lay Catholics.
However, in case your readers did not grasp the sinister implications of all this, two days later, in his regular column, Fintan O'Toole could think of nothing more pressing to write about than Dana and the Roman Catholic Church. He must be finding New York very boring!
In his opening shots at a woman he has probably never met, Mr O'Toole epitomised her supporters as eaters of "curly ham sandwiches" and, while I could never imagine such gastronomic horrors passing his lips, I wonder whether he has been eating "of the insane root that takes the reason prisoner". He does not seem to realise that his blatant bias, his tedious pedantry and his know-all attitude are certain to get under the skin of quite a number of people, people who might never have considered voting for Dana but whose sense of fair play is outraged by the insults and scorn he has heaped on one candidate among four.
His invective has achieved the very opposite of what he desires, because I am one voter who intends giving my first preference to Rosemary Scallon as a reaction against media manipulation. - Yours, etc.,
Boreenmanna Road, Cork.