Take A Letter Maria

For example, take this letter here:

RUSHED INTO WAR

Cheney's cloud of lies

Vice President Dick Cheney says the critics of the Bush administration and its steps leading up to the war with Iraq are employing a "dishonest and reprehensible" political ploy.

What then would Cheney call his own interview on "Meet the Press"? He claimed to have "proof positive" that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons and the capability of delivering those weapons to the United States. He warned America that we could not wait for the "mushroom cloud" before we decide to act.

ANTHONY MEYER, NORTHFIELD, MINN.

I'm leaving for the weekend. But there is a scrumptious smörgasbörd of entry points here: what Cheney said, when he said it, what else he said the same day, the Strib's honorable policy of keeping falsehoods out of letters, the ways they evade that policy, and the fact this guy is from Northfield, home to St. Olaf College, Carleton Collgee, the late Paul Wellstone and where everyone is very well read, it's well known.

But I gotta go now.