Watch out, you're about to step in something . . .

Check out this ad. It was brought to my attention yesterday, in an email sent by the DFL, saying it's being tested in our region. I was good and worked up after I saw it, and I dashed of a letter to the editor of our local paper. I doubt they'll print it, but the Internet being what it is, I am free to present it in my own forum:

February 16, 2006

To the Editor:

I just watched the Midwest Heroes commercial that I understand is being tested in Minnesota. In it, the family members of soldiers who have died fighting in Iraq make emotional arguments for continuing the occupation and war in that country. They reconstitute the idea that Iraq and Saddam Hussein are linked to the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, a claim that has been debunked by even the White House. Going further, they make the specious assumption that, were we not fighting in Iraq, we’d be fighting Al Qaeda here on American soil. While the individuals in the commercial may have been mislead by the Bush administration’s arguments for going to war, their loss is very real and no less tragic for the misinformation. This is worst kind of propaganda, because it will probably go unchallenged - who would dare argue with those families in the face of their losses?

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And now for the lighter side of the news, read Andy Borowitz' news of the day:

HALLIBURTON WINS CONTRACT TO RECONSTRUCT CHENEY’S REPUTATION

At $42 Billion, Largest Contract of its Kind, Company Says

The Halliburton Company announced today that it had won a $42 billion no-bid contract from the U.S. government to reconstruct the reputation of Vice President Dick Cheney.

While Halliburton has been known for massive reconstruction projects in such war-torn nations as Iraq, the $42 billion contract represents the first time that the company has been employed to put its reconstruction expertise to work on one embattled human being.

At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan defended the $42 billion price tag for the reconstruction effort, telling reporters, “Given how much work Dick Cheney’s reputation is going to take to rebuild, at the end of the day that $42 billion contract is going to look like a bargain.”

Mr. McClellan likened the state of Mr. Cheney’s reputation to conditions on the ground in Iraq, “only worse.”

But even as Halliburton began gearing up for the daunting task of reconstructing the vice president’s reputation, an unlikely critic of the plan, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill), questioned the wisdom of even attempting to rebuild Dick Cheney.

Rep. Hastert said that based on what he had seen of Dick Cheney’s reputation in recent days, it reminded him of the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, making him wonder whether the vice president could be rebuilt at all.

“It looks like a lot of Dick Cheney could be bulldozed,” Rep. Hastert said.

Elsewhere, breaking with a longstanding tradition set by his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his first economic report to Congress in English.