Homer Campbell began his latest distortion with, “I was challenged for my letter stating that Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. Well, he did, although he had enough votes to stop it.”

Homer is using a straw man argument by misrepresenting what the letter writer stated and then arguing against his fabricated misrepresentation.

The letter writer plainly conceded that, “While it is true that it was enacted under Clinton, what you failed to mention is that it was already approved and signed by George H.W. Bush, who tried to get it completed and enacted prior to leaving office.”

Homer just substantiated the very point he was making. His recipe of one part fact and three parts “Homer Facts” makes for an excellent conservative mush, but has no nourishment value as far as honest debate is concerned.

Next he complains about the “contention that my head is in the sand” without giving an ounce of context. “The letter writer’s contention” was concerning Homer’s refusing to acknowledge Republican obstructionism.

Tim Kincaid provided an example where 30 Republican Senators voted against the Franken Amendment that basically removed the “its OK if you get raped clause” from employee contracts if the company wants to do business with the federal government.

Then we get to his “Now, as for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Tony Blair and most of Europe thought the same and publicly said so” argument.

Is it possible that the leader of the free world was propagating this nonsense and it would be virtually unbelievable that he was being anything but totally honest about such a serious matter?

I seem to remember that anytime someone spoke out against preemptive war with Iraq that they were accused of being unpatriotic. Maybe they had even forgot about 9-11 or didn’t “support the troops.”

Homer then creates an argument suggesting when Democrats have a large majority and control of the House and Senate that “means the Republicans couldn’t stop any bill that was brought up.”

You can use the same argument for many issues that Republicans campaign on. Why, when Republicans had control, wasn’t abortion outlawed? A fair minded person might recognize the hypocrisy in their own argument.

Blaming Obama for his efforts in cleaning up after the party is disingenuous. What was the Republican answer for the near collapse of the banking industry or losing General Motors? Or the answer for job losses in the hundreds of thousands each month?

The primary Republican position I heard was essentially to continue the very policies that caused the mess. Obama’s plans have in some respects fallen short but have halted a full-scale Depression.

The revenue could have dropped off sharply and America could be facing a larger debt if Obama hadn’t held his nose and used deficit spending to prop up a collapsing economy. I am a Democrat and loathe deficit spending; I just haven’t seen where history adequately supports Republican philosophies.

G.W. Bush inherited an economy producing surplus revenue. During Clinton’s final years, economists were warning against paying the debt down to quickly. Under Bush and the Republican Congress, we totally avoided any adverse repercussions of paying the debt down too quickly.

Nice job Conservative values!

“You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to you own facts.”

— Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Glenn Bennett

Ashland, Ky.