Tim Walz and Gil Gutknecht are scheduled to debate at a forum sponsored by farm groups on Saturday. If things go the way they did at Farmfest, here's a taste of what the audience will hear. A letter from the Winona Daily News:
By Jean Patzner Mueller | Lewiston, Minn.
Most people don’t head to Farmfest for the political talk. But those who took the time to sit and listen to the panel discussion with candidates for U.S. Congress got a pretty good idea where our current leaders have failed us and where some new leaders might take us.
Particularly interesting was DFL candidate Tim Walz from the 1st District. He connected with the crowd in a very down-to-earth way, getting approving head-nods and a good amount of applause.
Walz talked some common sense amidst the Washington-speak a lot of us have grown tired of. He offered specific, concrete plans about fixing our roads, supporting the next generation of farmers and easing the burden on today’s agricultural workforce.
Tim Walz truly excelled in this simple forum. I’m excited to see what he’ll do in Washington.
PUSH-POLLING BY DM & E SUPPORTERS?
The New Ulm Journal reports on a survey taken by GO-TRAC, a coalition of those supporting the DM & E project:
Minnesotans favor Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad’s plan to upgrade its existing tracks in southern Minnesota By a 7-to-1 margin, , according to a new statewide survey of Minnesota voters about the railroad improvement plan.
Asked why they favor it, supporters most often said that it would improve rail safety.
The statewide survey found that 74 percent favor the DM&E plan, 10.4 percent oppose it and 15.7 percent did not know or refused to answer. Minnesotans voiced an equally strong conviction that the project would benefit farmers.
Those certainly are interesting results. In judging the merit of polling results, it's helpful to look at the questions and methodology used in asking and assessing them. Apparently, with this survey, such basic, common sense critical isn't possible yet. Why?
The Rochester Coalition, which is opposing DM&E’s plans to continue to route through Rochester, says the poll results “are just the latest example of the company’s pattern of secrecy and disinformation,” according to a spokesperson.
“This is a classic example of a push poll, making misleading statements about an issue followed by loaded questions to achieve a desired result, and then publicizing their ‘research’ findings for propaganda purposes,” says Lee Aase, a Mayo Clinic spokesperson.
Aase noted that DM&E has refused to release the list of survey questions or the complete results to news media, just as it has prevented any public scrutiny of the details of its application for a $2.5 billion federal loan. “To support its secret loan, the railroad has commissioned a survey to provide inflated estimates of public support for the project,” he says. “This has been an entirely secretive loan process, which has now been matched by a entirely secretive, deceptive, phony poll.”
The DM & E should release the full survey, including details on its design and methodology.
UNDERSTATEMENT
We couldn't read the rest of this opinion piece at the Owatonna People's Press, which keeps content behind a paid subscription firewall, but we appreciate the laconic lead ( behind a subscription firewall--the editor wants permission to run
any length of quote from the OPP, so we're revising here, paraphrasing
anything from the paper, regardless of how long or short the quote
may be; contact the OPP for the actual text of the article).
GUTKNECHT COMPARES IRAQ TO VIETNAM
In an article about Gil Gutknecht in the Pipestone Star, we found this curious set of paragraphs:
Still, Gutknecht said he still supports President Bush's basic strategy of withdrawing Americans as Iraqi forces take over the security burden. However, he admitted that he's felt uneasy about American policy toward Iraq for the last two or three years. He stated that the Bush administration has put a spin on the amount of progress that has been made in Iraq, mostly on the security front.
As a fiscal conservative, Gutknecht said, he also bemoans the expenditure of $322 billion to finance the war.
He believes the United States has followed policies that are based on "American hubris" that's been displayed in previous wars, namely, Vietnam and Korea.
"I call it the ‘Westmoreland Effect.' If you put enough troops on the ground, you will win the war," said Gutknecht.
We find this string of information quite confusing. Gutknecht says he supports President Bush's policies, but he doesn't like the Administration's spin on information. Nor does he like the expense of the war.
Have such misgivings been measured by any of the Representative's votes?
As for the "Westmoreland Effect"--"If you put enough troops on the ground, you will win the war," this, too, we find puzzling as a criticism of the administration's policies.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's game plan for the Iraq War was to have a less-labor intensive war, fewer boots on the ground. Many in the military disagreed, but as good soldiers in a constitutional democracy, they obeyed their civilian leader. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld may have hubris, but it seems to be distinctly different than the "Westmoreland Effect" as Gutknecht defines it. His statement doesn't seem to allude to this famous hubris.
What "Westmoreland Effect" in Iraq is Gutknecht talking about? The term came up in a Hugh Hewitt radio broadcast on December 12, 2005, when the conservative blogger was interviewing assistant secretary of defense Jeb Babbin [emphasis ours]:
HH: . . .Jed Babbin, you've just come back from Iraq. You look through the eyes of an assistant secretary of defense. You've got all the experience. You know all these people. And you know what people believe about the Westmoreland effect, and the Democrats talking up Vietnam. The confidence that the military are conveying to you, and as a civilian, you knew that. You heard that all the time. Is it authentic? Or is it what you wanted to hear, and that they had been told to tell you?
JB: Well, you know, I always look to the enlisted guys, Hugh. As a politician, or a political appointee, you can always go to the generals, and they'll tell you what they want you to hear. But if you go to the sergeants and the corporals, which is what I usually do, you get the straight skinny. You don't reveal their names, and you just ask them, hey, what's the real dope? And I got the same consistent answer from all these guys. Yeah, we are under strain. We are not going to like it if we have to come back here like the second or third time. But, we are winning this damned war. And just keep the politicians off our back and out of our way, and we're going to get this job done.
Hewitt's phrasing implies that discussion of the Westmoreland Effect is tied to Democratic comparisons of the Iraqi War with Vietnam. And now Gutknecht is using that same rhetoric that Hewitt attributed to Democrats. Curious.
Is the "Westmoreland Effect" related to this famous 1968 statement by the general: "The enemy can be attrited, the price can be raised, and it is being raised to the point that it could be intolerable to the enemy"?
A search of the congressional record in Nexis for the past twenty years yielded no hits for the search term "Westmoreland Effect." The term must come from Representative Gutknecht's extensive readings in history; if so, he would do well to enlighten us.
As for fretting about the funding of the war, does he wish to cut it off? Melvin Laird blames Congressional withdrawal of the check book for the failure of the Vietnamization of the earlier war. Gutknecht favors turning more of the war over to Iraq forces; does he favor withdrawing funding for that project as well?
It's possible that the Pipestone Star has taken Gutknecht's remarks out of context. The creator of the headline for the online version of the paper did have trouble spelling the representative's name: Gutnecht: Energy titles are crucial to 2007 Farm Bill .
Come on people! Situations like this are why Al Gore invented spellcheck.
ROCHESTER POST BULLETIN: WIKIPEDIA WACKINESS
The Rochester Post Bulletin picks up on Gutknecht's staff member's own skills as an editor.
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