What Bloody Nonsense!

(The following is the latest Letter to the Editor of the Register-Guard from Uncle Bob)

Tom Preuss (letter to the editor of 20 September) is extremely unhappy with the Register Guard for its “biased news” and “sickening” editorials and hopes to smile one day upon the “smoking crater” where the building containing the “shriveled souls” of its editors once existed.

I assume that such venomous hyperbole is merely evidence of a severe case of right-wing mental and moral indigestion and denial of reality and not evidence of a “maniacal barbarian” plot, as Mr. Preuss handily describes it in his letter, so I will not notify Homeland Security that a local citizen is recommending there be a “smoking crater” where our local newspaper building used to be.

So Mr. Preuss is home free, as far as I am concerned, and can continue to spread his poisonous gospel among us “shriveled souls” right here in River City.

And that he does; citing General Vo Nguyen Giap’s alleged remarks on the Vietnam War “currently found in the Vietnam War Memorial in Hanoi.”

General Giap is responsible for two memoirs; whether he actually wrote either of them personally is a matter for literary discussion. What is not at issue is the fact that he never said or wrote the comments quoted in Mr. Preuss’s letter. They are completely bogus, which should be evident to all concerned not only from the second sentence of the alleged remarks, which reads, “You had us on the ropes,.” an Americanization that no Vietnamese would ever use, and then the general’s alleged remarks that if it were not for the media “causing disruption in America” we “were ready to surrender.”

I must sum up Mr. Preuss’ allegations and quotations with three words:

What bloody nonsense!

ROBERT E. WINSLOW
Eugene, OR