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Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Friday, March 07, 2008

Letter writer not fully identified

By Thomas Feltes / Winona

In a recent letter to the editor, I believe the Winona Daily News was disingenuous in its identification of the letter writer. She was merely identified as a Winona State student. In fact, just days earlier in a front-page story about the caucuses, she was identified as the assistant executive director of the Winona State chapter of the College Republicans.

Writing the letter is her right, and I commend her for following her convictions and would defend her right to do so. The Daily News, on the other hand, was lax in its responsibilities. Correctly identifying her would not change her letter or the point she made. That being said, let me address the context of her writing.

The student was one of the self-described “Carls” at Carleton College. He did not want his picture taken with Al Franken, and when Franken asked why, one of the other “Carls” said “because he was conservative.” At that point, Franken started asking him questions about Bush and Reagan. The student admitted he got tense and did not have any answers. Franken then mimicked the student, chewing the inside of his mouth, and according to the student, his speech patterns. Certainly not the most desirable behavior of a candidate, but let me paraphrase a famous and favorite Fox/GOP/NeoCon line: “How are you going to enlist in the Army, go to Iraq and fight the Islamofacists if you can’t face a few pointed questions about why you support Bush’s war?”

That is what he and the College Republicans have in mind, is it not? After all, if you support sending others to fight and die for a cause you support, you should be willing to go yourself.

The college Republicans have a recruitment program in their organization at Winona State, don’t they? They do have them at all chapters nationwide, don’t they? The all-volunteer Army does accept women as well as men, don’t they? Or do famous felon College Republicans like Jack Abramhoff represent them better?

If you support a president who is responsible for 3,973 American soldier deaths, 25,000 wounded, $15 billion per month and half a trillion dollars to date, shouldn’t you have figured out how to explain that by now? But you can’t, so you whine about being talked mean to. Get over it.

Editor’s note: A disclaimer and explanation of Gronlund’s letter was printed in the Daily News on Feb. 9. The Norm Coleman campaign, which ghost-wrote the letter, also apologized for it in a story that ran in the Daily News on Feb. 28.