Reply #11: His defenders are all over the Sea Times' LTTEs

[maxsolomon]

Here, have a laugh:

<The barren or the peer

For 36 years, Sen. Ted Stevens has balanced Alaska's interests against those who want to turn the whole state into a national park, and the equally large group that wants to rape and pillage our resources without benefit to the residents of Alaska.

We live on the less than 3 percent of the state that is in private ownership and Sen. Stevens is our hero.

Congress has broken every agreement it has made with the state of Alaska since statehood — whether on land transfers, revenue shares from the potential development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — the list goes on and on.

And the media: They go for the easy political sound-bite solution and labels Stevens' projects pork. In a land where the federal government dominates our resources, these are ludicrous labels. Alaska is 50 years behind the rest of the country in roads, aviation and every other category of federally regulated activity. Complying with federal regulations makes the cost of our infrastructure obscenely expensive when standards developed for an Eastern megalopolis are applied to primitive rural Alaska.

Sen. Stevens has fought the good fight for a long time and we pray he will continue for another 20 years.

We Alaskans look for the time when Washington will once again elect senators with the intelligence, balance and sense of fairness that Stevens has displayed throughout his 36 years in the Senate.

— Frank McQueary, 53-year resident of Alaska, Anchorage>

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002699878_frilets23.html