Upstaging Osama

Kerry Belittles U.S. Troops

"You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

-- John Kerry

Over thirty years ago, John Kerry accused his fellow soldiers still in combat in Vietnam of wantonly murdering and raping civilians and burning their villages.

A few months ago, John Kerry said American troops in Iraq were "terrorizing" women and children in the dead of night.

Now he says the troops in Iraq ended up there because they are ignorant and uneducated.

At least Kerry is consistent: he besmirches and belittles American troops no matter the conflict in which they are involved. Now even Democrats are distancing themselves from the Massachusetts senator since he managed to expose their thoughts and feelings for our troops to the whole nation and the world.

It will be hard for Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri to top that one.

Dear Values Voter

A recent letter to the Rochester Post-Bulletin editor challenged "values voters," code words for evangelical Christians, to vote Democrat "for a change." According to the author, the alleged failings of the Republican party swing from the vapid charge that evangelicals have been "played for saps" to the ludicrous and dismissive assertion that abortion, flag burning and school prayer are "emotional" issues.

Evangelicals value innocent life, are deeply patriotic and believe the Constitution gives them the right to exercise their freedom of religion in the public arena. Republicans are the party which embraces those values and therefore it's natural that values voters should gravitate to the Party of Lincoln.

Democrats, on the other hand, defend abortion-on-demand including the gruesome procedure known as partial-birth abortion. They also promote embryonic stem cell research, which evangelicals object to on moral and ethical grounds. It is difficult for me to determine exactly how patriotic Democrats are since I hear more criticism of than either praise or appreciation for America from their camp. Democrats also come across as opposed to religious expression, particularly the Christian brand. The Boy Scouts seem to be a favorite whipping boy of theirs and their surrogates in the misnamed American Civil Liberties Union.

So, Mr. Michael Fields, the author of the letter, should forgive us value voter "saps" if we continue to vote for the candidates and party which acknowledges, honors, respects and promotes the civic and faith values we hold so dear. We will leave the getting mad and getting even to Mr. Fields and his party.

Rochester School Board Election

The League of Women Voters promoted a candidate forum among the Minnesota House and Senate Candidates in the area on November 25 at the Heintz Center.

During a break between debates in the commons area, I decided to make my way to the other room where debates were being conducted when I heard someone call may name. It was DFL activist and school board candidate Gary Mullen-Schultz. He introduced himself and proceeded to tell me that he knew I didn't like him very much. You see, we had sparred online regarding the left-leaning content of his columns when he used write to the Rochester Post-Bulletin. Apparently liberals take dissent as a personal affront, not as honest disagreement. It would seem that they don't think their viewpoint should be challenged. They are "right," after all.

I tried to tell Mr. Mullen-Schultz that my disagreement with him was ideological, not personal. He wouldn't have it. He said I had been "rude" to him online. I replied I could have said the same about him but wouldn't. Then I excused myself and walked away.

Mullen-Schultz, along with Sandra Soltis, must not be elected to the school board. They are a threat to taxes and education. They are the latest products of a certain "social concerns committee" in town. They are the same folks who gave us Sheila Kiscaden, Ann Lynch and Kim Norton. DFL activists see the school board as nothing more than a stepping stone for their own to be elected to higher office.

Soltis is a professional bureaucrat. She promotes her experience in education administration as an asset but it is actually detrimental. If elected, she will become an advocate of the interests of the bureaucracy not the students. Moreover, she denies that she is a product of the "social concerns committee" as per a conversation that we had on the phone about a month ago.

Parenthetically, I know very little about Larry Gifford, but his brochure has enough mispelled words in it to tell me that perhaps he should go back to school instead of joining the school board.

Let's reelect Fred Daly and elect Dan O'Neil and Diane Hermann-Blakley to the school board so as to keep it from becoming a lab for the failed liberal ideas of the DFL.

Daly is a decent man who has been a champion of the interests of fiscally conservative residents of the Rochester school district.

I have interviewed Dan O'Neil and found him to be honest and straightforward in his answers. He supports choice schools, particularly core knowledge. One of his children attends Washington Elementary, where two of my children are students as well.

Diane Hermann-Blakley is a small business owner who has the business common sense the current school board sorely lacks.

Booted!

Carla Nelson, Dave Senjem and Rich Decker, along with a few of their Republican supporters were uncerimoniously booted from the Somali Indoctrination Event put out by the DFL this afternoon. The media was present, which Tina Liebling was not pleased with. My recommendation: write the P-B and ask them how fair is it that the DFL wants to deceive the Somali residents of Rochester by billing an event as meet-the-candidates and then only having DFLers and their ideas showcased. Send your POLITE and INQUISITIVE emails to: letters@postbulletin.com, furst@postbulletin.com, sellnow@postbulletin.com, or losness@postbulletin.com.

Somali Voter Indoctrination Event

I called Abdi and asked him which candidates are going to be present at the "education" event and he told me that no candidates were going to be present. I said that the brochure stated that candidates would be present and asked if Republican candidates had been invited. He said it was not an event for candidates and that it was open to anyone who wants to attend. Please note that the "event" is sponsored by the Olmsted County DFL. Abdi invited me to attend and I plan to be there.

It should be interesting.