n Thanks to Mark Bridges for the blow-by-blow on his contest of wit with his unnamed friend on the topic of the Iowa caucuses (and so much more) in “Only unrealistic rich can agree with Bush” (pg. 12, Jan. 22). As much as I appreciate a good fashionably leftist political rant from an art student, I’m left less than impressed with his argument’s academic (or grammatical) rigor. It’s a shame, I think, that the Democratic caucuses are packed with gentlemen like Mr. Bridges or we might have a chance of a worthy challenger emerging that might still take Bush to task for some fiscal and judicial recklessness. As it is, that hardly looks likely. Time, maybe, for the Mark Bridges Democrats to start questioning mom and dad’s Michael Moore politics and figure out why many centrists grudgingly vote Bush -not entirely out of “psychotic denial,” I imagine. The Republicans might follow this prescription as well and quit kicking the John McCains to the caucus curb. In the end, we can rant and bitch all we want, but until more of us start getting involved in the nerd-fests that are the presidential primaries, we’ll be left to choose between Bush and whatever halfwit the Dems throw out there. Well, that’s not entirely true – if Mark got involved it’d probably stay the same.

Franz Gastler UNI ’05