There is nothing good and honorable in the Republican party of Minnesota's attack ad against Brita Sailer, our representative in the state House. Their ad claims that ever since "we" said yes to her two years ago, Brita "has been saying no to us." No to children, jobs, clean water, main street businesses, tourism and affordable health care in rural Minnesota. Each of those claims is false, as a "fair and balanced" inspection of their footnotes in comparison with her record proves.
Republican rhetoric locally, no less than nationally, attacks reality, misleads the electorate and dishonors the best in a history that reaches back to Abraham Lincoln. Worse yet, it dishonors the religious rhetoric that still speaks these words across the centuries: "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure... whatever is commendable... if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
Each of these words, which adherents of the Republican party ought now to honor, stands in sharp contrast to the mendacious spirit and scurrilous rhetoric of that false attack ad against our representative in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
Abe Lincoln knew what to say in such a situation. At one point in his debates with Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said that his opponent's rhetoric had no more substance than the boiled shadow of a half-starved crow. If the Republican party of Minnesota, which signed that ad, is well represented by this attack ad against Brita Sailer ( and by a mass-mailed July letter from her opponent), then that political party has even less substance than that boiled shadow of a half-starved crow.
John G. Gibbs
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Park Rapids
