I am disappointed, in fact doubly disappointed, with Gerard Alexander’s column, ”Why do liberals look down on conservatives” (Feb. 12).

First, I’m disappointed that an actual professor of political science at an actual American university should be shocked, (shocked!) to discover that folks of one political persuasion spend a lot of time and energy belittling their opponents. Gosh, what a surprise!

I hope that professors of religion at University of Virginia aren’t equally uneducated about how the Catholics and Protestants have dealt with each other over the centuries — or that the school’s coaches, players and cheerleaders don’t lose too much sleep worrying over how infernally nasty those Duke Blue Devils are.

Get with it, professor; facts are indeed facts, but politics, religion and sports are something altogether different. It doesn’t take too much looking around to realize that today’s American liberals have no monopoly on condescension.

However, my greater disappointment is not with Mr. Alexander’s myopia (after all, he is a political expert), but with the Press Herald’s decision to print this piece of whining silliness in the first place.

I doubt the paper would give over three columns to some Old School Presbyterian’s take on how his denomination is constantly dissed by the New Schoolers.

Nor do I believe it would turn over a ”commentary” page to a Yankee fan upset at how the denizens of Red Sox nation insist, in spite of the ”facts,” that their views are superior.

At the very least, if the Press Herald wants to maintain the grand tradition of its forebears — the enthusiastically Jeffersonian Eastern Argus and the wildly Whiggish Portland Advertiser of the 1800s — it should at the very least print a piece of local political whining rather than that of some drawler from the South.

After all, didn’t Gen. Lee turn over his sword to our own Joshua Chamberlain in 1865?