The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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July 26, 2006

Gutknecht must be held responsible

How should we react to Gil Gutknecht’s revelation that Iraq is a degenerating mess? Glad he has finally realized he has been a zealot for a tragic lie? Angry that it took him so long? Instead, I hope as his term of service nears an end, that he has some insight and remorse over the failures of his party’s policies and their fatal consequences. What he calls State Department or Pentagon “spin” is what the rest of us call bald-faced lies, and the lies are not limited to the quagmire in Iraq/Afghanistan.

While bemoaning the shortage of students interested in the sciences, the administration politicizes science, censoring reports that don’t fit their agenda and claiming that the “science isn’t in” on topics where the international scientific community is in strong agreement. Denying the existence of global warming is just a lie. Claiming creationism is a scientific alternative to evolution is just a lie. Promising that the North Shore oil deposits can solve our energy crisis is just a lie. Calling homosexuality a choice and portraying it as a threat to marriage is just a lie. Saying we need a flag burning amendment to the Constitution is a silly lie.

As one of the Bush/Rove regime’s most reliable lapdogs, Gutknecht must be held directly responsible for massive deficits, tax cuts that have benefited only the wealthy, and the crisis in health care access. We’re stuck with the oil industry owning the administration for a few more years, but this November Congress needs new leaders who will stop administrative and corporate profiteering, not just be accomplices in the lobby dollars culture of corruption.

William Anderson

Mankato

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