Letters to the editor for Wednesday, Aug. 13

As one follows the Hwy. 60 saga ("Lawmaker feels duped as Hwy. 60 fixes fade," Aug. 11), it has become painfully obvious that the Minnesota Department of Transportation has morphed into a political arm of the governor's office.

Why would Gov. Tim Pawlenty appoint his own lieutenant governor to run the department if he didn't want to control the decisions being formed there? Clearly, the governor views MnDOT monies as a slush fund from which to reward his friends and punish those who cross him.

WADE NELSON, MOUNTAIN LAKE, MINN.

According to the report by the special investigator general for Iraq reconstruction, the Iraqi government is considering a supplementary budget of $7 billion for reconstruction. This is due to the government's burgeoning oil windfall, which is projected to top $50 billion in the next quarter and is funded largely by all of us buying oil at $140 a barrel.

I am underwhelmed by Sen. Norm Coleman's proposal to rescind $1 billion of our tax dollars targeted for Iraqi reconstruction. Rescinding $7 billion not already obligated, as Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken proposes, matches the Iraqi budget dollar-for-dollar and is the very definition of "standing down as Iraq stands up."

I also take issue with Coleman's campaign statement that it was not his permanent investigative committee's place to investigate the reconstruction. Perhaps not, but a dozen reports of the special inspector general detailing waste and fraud surely should have pointed to something that was.

CLAYTON HAAPALA, MINNETONKA

Thank you, Star Tribune. In your Aug. 12 editorial "The Edwards affair: It's the lying, stupid" and a series of cartoons and articles that you've published, you've done what we wanted to do as children -- knock down a notch or two a classmate who was just too smart, good-looking, ambitious and "goodie-goodie" for our liking.

The teachers wouldn't let us use the school paper, so we had to pass around our slam notes, saying things like "I don't like him," "He thinks he's so smart" or "He thinks he's better than us." If we caught him looking in the mirror or combing his hair, we could say "He's a narcissist" or whatever. If he stumbled and fell down that notch, we could really stomp on him as a phoney.

Of course, lying about an affair is always the worst kind of lying and disqualifies one from politics and government. If the media had been more active in reporting personal indiscretions of politicians in the past, then we could have been saved from the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.

Thank goodness we won't have to worry about a President John Edwards. He would have continued to irritate us with his continual harping on poverty and joblessness.

So, take that, John Edwards, and thank you, Star Tribune.

RICHARD PATTEN, MINNEAPOLIS

I think your letter writer who referred to Republicans as ignorant because of their criticism of Barack Obama's "inflate your tires" energy solution is being sloppy, if not deliberately dishonest.

What Obama said is: "We could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires and -- and -- and getting regular tuneups, you can actually save just as much."

This is what Obama is being criticized for, and justly so, since it is patently ridiculous to advocate proper tire inflation as a viable substitute for the utilization of untapped domestic oil reserves. But, then again, facts have never been much of an impediment for the True Believers of Obama.

KEVIN BLACK, FARGO, N.D.

I was one of those who paid $1,000 to attend the fundraiser for Sen. Obama last week. What would Nick Coleman ("From the street, Obama event had a GOP feel," Aug. 7) rather I did with my money? Buying T-shirts from a vendor outside the Hilton is not going to help move our country away from our eight-year national nightmare under the Bush administration.

Rather than sit back and let John McCain and his Karl Rove acolytes slander their way to the White House, I chose to do something positive on behalf of those who are not as fortunate as I am.

I consider the money I spent an investment in a better America.

STEPHEN J. SMELA, MINNEAPOLIS

Barb Sykora's Aug. 8 commentary attacked Barack Obama for his shift on public campaign financing, but failed to mention the recent reversals by John McCain on this issue -- as well as many others that helped McCain craft his "maverick" image.

McCain raised the eyebrows of the Federal Election Commission after he used the prospect of $6 million in federal matching funds as collateral for a campaign loan, only to turn down the funds later when his situation improved. McCain was once critical of PAC money but now has no problem skirting spending caps via Republican National Committee smear ads. He opposes his own measure to require lobbyists to reveal their financial donors.

If, as Sykora says, the "surest test of a candidate for president is whether he will stand on principle and keep his word," it is hypocritical of Sykora to be shilling for McCain.

MARK KIRWIN, MINNEAPOLIS

Now that Osama bin Laden's driver has been convicted by the Guantanamo military tribunal (Star Tribune, Aug. 7), who can we expect on the dock next -- his window cleaner, gardener or laundryman, perhaps?

YVONNE RIDLEY, LONDON

Wow! Thanks for the nearly full page in the Aug. 8 Variety section on the best marijuana movies. Far out, man! I hope in the following weeks we can look forward to "best meth movies," "crack comedies," "scag on the silver screen," "drunk documentaries," "downer dramas," etc.

JIM WRIGHT, PINE CITY, MINN.