You can rely on students around the presidential election to say some silly things. And you can rely on them to write. While picking on student letters to the editor is often like shooting fish from a barrel (and why shoot? Wouldn't real men use their hands?) there are times you just can resist. The Elder likes to read on NARN stupid letters to the editor in the Minneapolis papers, but I think he's got an early contender right here in St. Cloud.

If it is not evident to you by now, it should be. George W. Bush is unfit for command.

Ah, there's some fine looking rhetoric: "If you can't see what I see, you must be a dolt." Try stealing a line from something not being used against your own candidate.

I have held back for a time now from writing such a statement about the man in the oval office, but with the recent endorsement for Sen. John Kerry by John Eisenhower (son of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower) I am no longer able to hold back my suggestions for the young voters on campus.

Wow, yeah, you're right. I have been waiting all year for John Eisenhower's endorsement, which is clearly a watershed event in the fall campaign! It must have made all the papers, right? Well, at least the Manchester (NH) Union-Leader, a paper I used to deliver as a child. How could have I missed it?

Move in day was scary for me, there were just a few too many kids rushing out of mom and dad's SUV with W'04 stickers on them.

This is hysterical. What were you afraid of, young man? That they would kidnap you and take you to a Quonset hut in Crawford and deny you the chance to read John Eisenhower's long-awaited endorsement?

I would assume that by now, these kids can read, and I hope they will do so.

They've at least learned to distinguish the letter 'W', as opposed to the letter 'F' as in JoFoKerry. And they can read. They might even be able to watch videos.

Conservative youth to me is an oxymoron...

...as opposed to liberal youth, who don't need the first two syllables...

...and unfortunately I foresee a return of them.

What's to foresee, if they're already here, if you're quivering in your apartment behind the macrame planter getting your mellow harshed?

The sons and daughters of the Reagan Youth have come to college, it is not too late for them to think for themselves.

Here it comes. Our youth have been brainwashed. They have no ability to think for themselves, they are automatons programmed by Mombot and Dadbot to vote to close the abortion clinics, carpetbomb from Syria to Pakistan, and turn all single mothers out of their homes and into the streets emblazoned by the scarlet 'A'. This will happen as soon as they get control of the Congress and the Presidency. Oh wait, that already happened.

We have come here to get an education, please take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

And to you an education is what? To undo years of training by parents? This is the purpose of education, to turn kids against the values they grew up with? Examine them, sure. Critique them, absolutely. But taking advantage of my education made me even more right-libertarian than my parents. The role of education is to get youth to think, yes, and think for themselves, but not necessarily to get them to think opposite of mom and dad who have a bumper sticker you don't like.

I, like John Eisenhower, am encouraging people to avoid voting for a party just because our parents do.

That's far more ink than Eisenhower ever should get. There are no shortage of kids who vote differently than their parents (look at Ron Reagan, for example.) But voting like my parents, out of respect for my parents, might be a very respectful and proper thing to do in many traditional families. Why are the values my family passed on to me, or the values those parents with the W bumperstickers passed on to their children, subject to such scorn? And I wonder what this muttonhead would think of our friend Emma?

If you have watched the debates, you know damn well that Kerry is the better choice ...

Half of America disagrees with you. More than half if you know how to count correctly.

... and Bush failed to defend his failures of the past four years.

There are no failures to defend, except the failure to protect French profits and keep Saddam in power.

So I urge the younger students to be open minded, look into to the issues and think critically.

I have always thought thinking critically meant something different than agreeing with a dolt like this. I guess not. Thinking critically = thinking liberally, thinking in lockstep with the elitists who run our academic departments.

And last but not least, please vote this year, it may be your last chance.

HAHAHA! Yes, those people with the bad bumperstickers will not only take away free marijuana, they will even take away your right to vote!

Zachary Dorholt
Sixth-year student

Beautiful. We're getting lectured to by someone who cannot even finish his degree in five years. He must be busy working on his critical thinking. Or maybe he's taking extra advantage of his time getting an education.

UPDATE: Many thanks to Mitch and the Elder for links to this post. The GoStat meter is ringing off the chart this AM.