The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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September 14, 2006

Liberals need not apologize for keeping people informed

For more than a year now, a steady stream of letters and My View columns in The Free Press has offered facts and arguments detailing the blunders and inadequacies of the Bush administration and Republicans.

You can’t help but notice the intellectual impotence of opponents unable to counter these facts and arguments. If they write anything, they just whine about liberal extremists.

Liberals need not apologize to anyone for keeping people informed about what their government is doing: Ignorance may be bliss; but it is not a virtue.

The problem with ignoring facts is that they can come back to bite your backside — evident (to anyone reasonably well-informed) in the President’s rhetorical attempts to cover his badly-bitten butt after the Iraq fiasco, Katrina, loss of international prestige for the United States, rejection of Bush prisoner policies by federal courts, huge deficits, tax cuts for the rich, denial of global warming, hindering stem cell research, and trying to panic people about Social Security. Equally bitten are his Republican cohorts, like Gil Gutknecht and Mark Kennedy.

I counted at least 25 relevant facts cited in Fred Slocum’s Aug. 28 My View column, supporting his charges about Republican abuse of power. I challenge whiners Wayne Comstock and Ryan Hansen, or anyone else, to refute these facts.

Slocum’s expertise warrants respect and close attention from any citizen wanting to be well-informed.

On Plan B, I thought he chose the wrong word (wrong, only because of a decision made after submission of his column). And in the Texas redistricting case, I personally thought an important factual omission deserved consideration. But nobody’s perfect.

Ron Yezzi

Mankato

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