TO THE EDITOR: THE NORTHFIELD NEWS IREAD WITH some interest Duane Steil's letter in the Aug. 27 edition of the News.

First, I was curious as to why someone from Reno, Nevada, would be writing a letter for publication in the Northfield News. It is possible that he has a Northfield connection, but after doing a wee bit of searching, I found that Steil is simply a right-wing plagiarist (the bulk of Steil's letter was copied wordfor word from an essay by rightwing extremist Jerome Corsi, of 'Swiftboat' fame - and not a very good one, for he seems to have omitted quotation marks and sources from the essay he copied.

Finding the source of Steil's plagiarism, an essay by Jerome Corsi, explained quite a bit. It explained, for example, why there was no mention of the fact that it was George W. Bush who began the taxpayer funded bailouts. No mention that it was under George W. Bush's watch that the economy took a nosedive, while Bush and his congressional cronies just kept trying their 'one big thing' - tax cuts primarily for the wealthy. Nowhere does Steil/Corsi mention the fact that Bush's invasion of a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 and was no threat whatsoever to our mythical 'freedoms' has cost the taxpayer some 680 billion dollars (not including the cost of the 'justifiable' invasion of Afghanistan) so far, when we were told by the conservative "experts" in 2002 that the war would cost no more than 50-60 billion, and nowhere does Steil/Corsi mention that the Bush cabal had no real plan to pay for any of this. It explained these things because Corsi, like Steil, has an agenda to push, and honesty is just something that gets in the way.

In the end, I guess we should not be very surprised that rightwing anti-government types are also liars by omission and sleazy plagiarists.

Their heroes are no better. But I do hope that the News will be a bit more cautious in their choice of which lengthy rants from non-Vermonters they decide to publish in the future.

SCOTT L. PAGE

Northfield