Letter(s) Of The Day

today, there are several that deserve the distinction of Letter Of The Day. all from the same source.

GOPAC, a Washington, D.C.,-based Republican action committee, has announced plans to financially support Republican candidates for school boards in Iowa ("Political Group Targets School Boards," Aug. 1).

For what reason would a national organization in Washington, D.C., involve itself in our local school board elections other than to put in place candidates who will promote its political agenda?

With President Bush leading the charge to force his and the far-Christian right's beliefs onto the electorate (limiting stem-cell research, advocating intelligent-design curriculum, providing nonaccountable funding of faith-based organizations and vouchers for private schools) this is not the time to keep from voters the political affiliation of each school board candidate.

The deck is already being stacked by GOPAC. Hopefully the Register and organizations like the League of Women Voters and Women for a Stronger America will do their part to educate the electorate.

-Nancy Theodore, West Des Moines.

and

When does deference to a public official become blind submission? The Register crosses that point in its Aug. 2 editorial, "Bolton's Almost Beside the Point," which is dismissive of President Bush's recess appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.

Let the ruler do whatever he wants, the editorial basically says, that's what he is paid to do - rule. Whatever happened to accountability or the checks and balances system in our democracy?

Further, the editorial is just too dismissive of the role of the U.N. ambassador - a position that has been held by several of our nation's finest public servants over the past 60 years. Check the lineup - Ralph Bunche, Henry Cabot Lodge, Adlai Stevenson, et al.

John Bolton is a disastrous appointment and subservience to presidential power can't change that.

-Herb Strentz, Urbandale.

and

Many modern-day, church-attending Christians seem to have forgotten the fundamental message of Jesus. How can individuals who are trying to imitate Christ support pre-emptive military actions, more deadly weapons systems, the death penalty and more punitive sentencing, tax breaks that expand the separation between the rich and the poor, unrestricted gun access and ownership and minimal foreign aid to needy nations?

How can such actions and attitudes be reconciled with the central messages in the Beatitudes or in the basic edict from Christ that we should love our neighbor as ourselves? Is real Christianity simply too difficult to practice for most people?

Bill McKibben recently observed in a Harpers magazine article that "America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior." Perhaps it is high time for Christians to strive to more closely emulate their leader's teachings.

-Dean R. Prestemon, Ames.

KUDOS TO ALL THE WRITERS!