To the editor:

Karl Rove’s strategy of mass distraction is in full swing. His unseemly remarks in late June were just another salvo in the rhetoric wars, trying to keep the focus off his boss’s failed policies. And it almost worked on me. I had angrily fired off a letter to the editor over the weekend, calling for President Bush to fire Rove and get on with the business of uniting this country.

Then the June 26 paper arrived, featuring a front-page story about custom wheat cutters and how they are finding it difficult to afford the fuel to stay in business. I had planned to drive through south-central Kansas that day. As I drove past field after field of freshly cut wheat, I thought about what would happen if it couldn’t be harvested. One year it would rot in the fields. The farmers would lose money; many would quit farming for good. The next year it wouldn’t even be planted. McDonald’s would have to buy wheat from China to keep making Big Mac buns. A critical part of the U.S. economy would be lost, and life in the Wheat Belt would never be the same.

Affluent Americans find the high cost of fuel to be an inconvenience. But it’s more than that. It’s not a coincidence, either. While Karl Rove is distracting us with his outrageous and offensive remarks, the administration pursues policies that are slowly tearing this country’s fabric apart. This is Kansas’ wake-up call. Will we hear it before it’s too late?

Andrea Zuercher,

Lawrence