More Ruff Business

A friend of mine, Lisa, of Honesty Counts had her letter to the editor published this week in the Farmville Herald. Since they are for some reason, unwilling to leave these letters up, here it is:

March 7, 2006


Dear Editor,

This letter is in response to one sent by Republican State Senator Frank Ruff (District 15) and published in many local papers on Friday, March 3, 2006.

I found it extremely hilarious to have someone (and especially a Republican politician, no less) finally put into print that the problems with jobs in Southside Virginia (and especially the 5th District) had become worse in the last 10 years—the exact length of time that Virgil Goode has been in office. I’m sure the connection was not lost on others who read it. And, if it was lost on them, then they can now relate his statement to the economic reality of this district.

In addition, Senator Ruff talks about Virgil’s integrity and honesty. Let’s not get too hasty in casting stones at others (namely Bern Ewert and Al Weed) who, like me, are upset about what’s going on in Washington. Personally, I’d prefer to wait until we see the paperwork about the donations to Virgil’s campaign by MZM and check it against the timing of his voting as well as his very small record of sponsoring and writing legislation actually benefiting Virginia’s 5th Congressional District. While the MZM PAC information is available on the Internet, the earmark documents themselves will tell the whole story about “Representative A.” Even the news media is interested in seeing this information, as the ongoing investigation into Virgil’s activities have been covered in several national magazines, including Time, Newsweek, USA Today and U.S. News and World Report, as well as many of the current political talk shows on regular, cable and satellite channels. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire—so we’ll just have to wait and see whether it will take a garden hose or an ocean to put it out.

Perhaps the next time someone wants to promote another candidate’s character as “unquestionable,” he will have be sure to have his letter checked and approved by the campaign of the candidate in question. This letter certainly didn’t do it for me. As a matter of fact, his letter associating and supporting others with questionable actions in their recent past leads me to wonder what I will find when I check Ruff’s own background when he runs for State Senate again in my county.

Lisa Blanton
Cumberland, Virginia

All I can say, is that Frank Ruff has a lot of balls saying that Virgil has an unreproachable character. As I said in my other entry on this subject, all the people in Central Virginia who have Frank Ruff for a Senator should look closely at someone who seems as frighteningly out of touch as Frank does.