A Letter to the Editor of the Star Tribue

Monday, October 29, 2007

I started listening to Garrison Keillor when I was a law student at the University of Minnesota and Keillor had the weekday morning drivetime slot on Minnesota Public Radio. I thought he was terrific, a guy with talent to burn who could easily make it on the national stage. That was more than thirty years ago. Since he achieved fame on the national stage, however, Keillor has turned into an extraordinarily depressive, unfunny humorist.

Apparently wanting to add yet another angry liberal to its stable of opinion writers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has taken Keillor on as a weekly political commentator. Here's a representative bit of his political wit and wisdom:

Now I'm an old tired Democrat, sick of this infernal war that may go on for the rest of my life and in which more of our brethren will die miserably, both American and Iraqi. I'm sick of politics today, the cleverness and soullessness of it. I am still angry at Al Gore for wearing those stupid sweaters in 2000 and pretending he didn't know Bill Clinton, and I am angry at everyone who voted for Ralph Nader. I hope the next time they turn the key in the ignition their air bags blow up.

The Star Tribune's thoroughgoing liberalism rules the paper from stem to stern with the exception of metro columnist Katherine Kersten -- and one columnist who has asked us to protect his or her identity. S/he writes that s/he has become the self-appointed "Anti-Keillor" to rebut Keillor's liberal rubbish whenever it appears in the Star Tribune. Because Keillor's wretched column appears in the Strib's expanded Sunday opinion section, our correspondent will be writing most Mondays, starting today. S/he writes:

In his October 28 column, Garrison Keillor refers to Republicans as the “I’ve Got Mine” party. Logically, that would make Democrats the “Give Me Yours” party, but name calling won’t get us anywhere.

Liberal Democrats like Keillor believe needy people need money, and that government must give it to them. The idea is that we all contribute to the pot through taxes, and then government expertly doles out the cash to those who need it most.

Traditional Republicans, however, believe that government tends to be wasteful and inefficient with money...or anything else. We think along the lines of P.J. O’Rourke, who wrote: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

I have yet to meet a liberal fan of higher taxes who ever wrote a donation check to the IRS. Why is that? If you really believe you’re helping the needy by paying more taxes, what’s stopping you?

Keillor writes that Republicans wrecked a consensus we once had in America about taxing people according to their ability to pay. But such a “consensus” could have existed only in the minds of liberals, who make up less than half the population. That’s not a consensus. And he left out the second half of Marx’s maxim, which is “to each according to his need,” presumably because that would have set off alarm bells.

Keillor also believes that well-off Americans have no interest in providing a safety net for the less-fortunate. He must not have seen the Nov. 28, 2006 report on ABC News (“Who Gives More -- The Rich or The Poor?”), which found that, of the top 25 states where people give an above-average percent of their income, 24 voted Republican in the last presidential election. Here's the most telling quote from that story: "You find that people who believe it's the government's job to make incomes more equal, are far less likely to give their money away."

Or Keillor must not have read Who Really Cares by Arthur Brooks, which demonstrates that conservatives give about 30 percent more to charity than liberals. And incidentally, conservative-headed families make slightly less money. If Garrison would like a copy of the book, just let me know. I’m happy to mail him one free. That’s what we conservatives do. We don’t wait for government to help others. We do it ourselves.

Our correspondent signs this letter to the editor as ""The Other Conservative Strib Columnist." I'm pretty sure it won't see the light of day in the Star Tribune, where the editor of the letters to the editor is -- what else? -- another know-nothing liberal.

C.A.A. Note: This is a letter written to a newspaper (along with a conservative blogger's commentary) and it contains enough interesting comments to warrant a post here.