VansOpinion - APPLY YOUR NAZI METAPHORS CAREFULLY!

In response to an Lincoln Journal Star editorial page cartoon which both he and I considered downright disgusting, my friend Bob Valentine wrote the following and passed out copies of such while picketing in front of the newspaper's building. They called the police and an officer asked him to leave. What has happened to FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS in Lincoln Nebraska? Read what he wrote then send him an e-mail (ryv@neb.rr.com) or give him a call at (402) 430-1500 and commend him for his courage to stand up and be counted. As a token of my respect for Bob, I am sharing with you what he wrote and personally circulated a few days ago.

When the Journal Star editorial staff failed to make a thoughtful case in "Call off the lawyers on torture," [Monday, June 14, 2004] they did what any anti-democratic leftists would do: The haul out the Nazi metaphor in an editorial cartoon!

Suggesting that lawyers should be selective in their study of the law, the Journal Star forgets that they support lawyers who find loopholes in partial birth abortion laws and Nebraska's constitutional amendment to define marriage as one man and one woman. All of a sudden, the Journal Star comes out against research by lawyers. Imagine that!

"Government lawyers should start from the bedrock of American values," they suggest. Yea, sure, as long as the values are those of the elitist liberal minority that runs the editorial pages of the Journal Star. Damn the majority. Damn the voters. Damn commons sense. Let's print a cartoon with Hitler in it! When all else fails, let's use the rhetorical device of contiguous contamination: Hitler, Mao, Sadaam and Ashcroft. Just like peas in a pod.

I watched the Senate hearings on the laws to define torture. I listened to General Ashcroft's testimony. Did the Journal Star editorial staff watch the hearings, too?

The Bush administration and most Americans, soldiers, politicians and others deplore torture, especially the torture practiced by Sadaam Hussein. The Bush administration especially abhors the tortuous deaths of nearly three thousand Americans in the twin towers and the hundreds of other Americans killed in gruesome acts by terrorists around the world. Open hearings and public condemnation take place only in America.

It is not without irony that the behavior of the few soldiers who crossed the line at Abu Ghraib reflects the sexual, promiscuous and violent behavior promoted for four decades by leftist ideology in America. Kill babies, fornicate and sodomize, but expect our soldiers to behave like Baptists.

Hidden at the end of Monday's editorial is the acknowledgment that Bush rejects torture, but that doesn't stop the Journal Star from giving aid and comfort to those who want to destroy us.

Monday's editorial is yet another example of snotty hatred that many at the Journal Star direct toward the Bush administration. These are the same folks who remained silent when President Clinton bombed Bosnia, killing thousands of civilians.

But, then again, when Journal Star editorial writers can't win their arguments with logic and reason, they haul out a NAZI cartoon.