Not so funny

To the Editor:

On Sept. 11 it came out Gov. Brian Schweitzer said in a July speech to a trial lawyer’s convention in Philadelphia that he’d tampered with the 2006 Senate election to ensure a Tester win. When caught, he claimed it was a joke and he was the follow-up act for Al Franken.

If you’d like to listen to your governor, cut and paste: www.archive.org/details/MontanaGov.BrianSchweitzerSpeechToTrialLawyersConvention7142008 then enjoy!

A complaint was filed and Attorney General Mike McGrath refused to investigate.

A Sept. 15th Associated Press story on Schweitzer had him attending Sen. Tom Harkin’s Iowa BBQ, where he told his November election predictions with Montana going for Obama. The article said he was invited to speak as Montana’s Governor, rather than a comedian, but obviously he was joking this time. It’s that or maybe he’s planning to tamper with this year’s election too. It’ll be hard to tell if he does or not, as long as McGrath is attorney general.

I listened to all 36 minutes of the (above) tape with the governor boasting to the lawyers about his 2006 tampering deeds to ensure the Tester win. He went into explicit detail including a statement the attendees had written checks when he’d asked. It’s like he was speaking to a bunch of ACORN people.

Myself, I don’t think it was a joke, but simply a braggart reporting to his donors. Most were laughing and why not, with a fox (McGrath) watching the cock in the hen house, all likely thought he’ll get away with it.

On the flip-side, we know the Governor tells “tall ones” and is a wanna-be funny-man, which makes it hard to tell when or if he’s telling the truth.

He tried to get us to believe Obama and Biden wouldn’t take away our guns, despite the fact both have dandy anti-gun records and will try to strip people of permits for self-defense, plus draft a new extended Assault Weapons Bill, this time without a 10-year sunset clause (Biden was the original’s primary author).

Tampering with an election is hardly a joke, but it does look like Montana has two new ones — Schweitzer and McGrath. One party in this country loves to investigate their opponents, but refuse to police their own.

John Gallaher

Thompson Falls