PFC BOWE BERGDAHL

Water-boarding might be the mild stuff

In response to the July 23 Letter of the Day about the captured U.S. soldier, I am hoping for his sake and his family's that "the Cheney treatment" is all that young man gets.

Ever notice when those videos surface how the soldier is out of uniform and in a long-sleeved outfit? How does the writer think they get his uniform off and why does he think the soldier needs the long sleeves? Maybe because he's not just receiving the Cheney treatment.

AARON MARTIN, LAKEVILLE

Health care in America

Lucky to have it, but system needs improving

I am perplexed by all of the sentimentality over our current health care system -- the system we seem so afraid to change. I wonder if it is real people whose sound bites are being reported in the media in this public debate -- or the usual health care industry cronies?

Approximately 25 percent of my income goes to our family health care. It would be 30 percent or more if we could actually afford to use it! The premiums go up in double digits every year, as the benefits go down, and co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses skyrocket. And I am one of the lucky ones to even have insurance at all!

This real person's message to President Obama: Go for it. Turn this supposedly great health care system upside down. A little competition with the current industry is just the medicine we need.

JANICE THURN, GOLDEN VALLEY

CHANGE WE'RE WAITING FOR

Hold your horses;

it's only just begun

A July 21 letter writer stated that perhaps the Bush years were not as bad as claimed. How does the economy look today? What would you say to the family who lost a loved one in an inexcusable war?

The changes and hope for a better America are just getting started. Be patient, it will happen.

MIKE MCDonald, St Paul

OBAMA ON THE GATES ROW

The president speaks without the facts

Will the media make what should be an obvious point? President Obama repeatedly said he didn't have all the facts, then passed judgment recently when he said the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" with Henry Louis Gates Jr.

If the president can't restrain himself from voicing an opinion when he hasn't all the facts, how can we possibly trust him?

The facts suggest that the Cambridge police acted properly. Look at the pictures.

Gates is screaming like an infant while a black cop stands there looking disgusted. Gates, a professor at Harvard, went ballistic on the cops, who responded to a report (correct, as it turned out) that two men were breaking down his front door. Yes, Gates was one of them, opening a stuck door, but the cops could not possibly know that. Then he refused to show ID to the police (a crime in most states, folks).

And from this Obama concludes the cops were wrong? This guy has the largest information-gathering system in the world at his fingertips. He obviously shot from the hip into a racially charged situation.

LARRY FROST, BLOOMINGTON

How They worked

If Cronkite said it, you knew it really happened

The July 21 Letter of the Day neglected an important part of the loss in the passing of such a wonderful man. Walter Cronkite and his fellow newsmen reported the news as it was, truthfully, unlike today's media. In comparing Cronkite to Rush Limbaugh, the writer accuses Limbaugh of "spreading his hatred of anyone who is not conservative," echoing the accusations of most liberals today, and then asks how to bring back the honest news today.

For that to happen, we would have to purge colleges and universities of teachers who implant the prejudices the writer speaks of, along with liberal reporters who avoid or slant the truth. The loss of listeners from the major TV networks and the decline of circulation in the written media speaks to the lack of honesty and trust today. ABC, NBC, CBS and cable news network programs are declining in viewership: Fox News and talk radio are growing each day, and it is not only conservatives who listen.

DENNIS MADDEN, MINNETONKA