THUMBS DOWN JOHN VANCE, JOHN BIRCH

Thumbs Down to District Attorney John Vance for choosing to address the far-right lunatics of the local John Birch Society. These are the folks, remember, who questioned the patriotism of Dwight Eisenhower and whose commie-under-every-bed rhetoric led to the witch hunts and blacklists of the Fifties. So what if some Dallas businessmen are Birchers? Imagine the uproar if the chief-elected law officer of the county were to cozy up to a conspiracy-minded group on the left of the political spectrum-say, the followers of Louis Farrakhan.