The Staten Island Advance published a letter to the editor I wrote last week today.

I normally would only post the link, but The Advance purges articles from its archives two weeks after they run, with no opportunity for even payed access.

YOUR OPINION
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Craig Donner, my counterpart as communications director in last year's congressional election, based on his Feb. 12 letter to the editor, thinks his boss Rep. Vito Fossella's constituents are amnesiacs.

First, he forgets to mention Fossella favored the deadlines and penalties imposed on seniors as an "incentive" to sign up for the Medicare prescription plan, written by the pharmaceutical industry, which was among his campaign's largest donors. Fossella favored punishing those not signing up by the May 15 deadline with a six month waiting period and increased costs. Why does the congressman wish to punish the elderly not meeting bureaucratic deadlines? Nobody benefits from delaying coverage and increasing costs for those not acting quickly enough. This is another example of Republican heartlessness.

A common Republican political strategy is to repeat a lie often enough until people believe it. Karl Rove has made a career out of it and Fossella continues to employ this strategy concerning Social Security. Donner states that Fossella is not in collusion with the American Enterprise Institute against Social Security and does not endorse privatization. The American Enterprise relationship may or may not exist. However, the right-wing Cato Institute is a different story. Their socialsecurity.org Web site continues to link to Fossella's 2002 appearance on CNN as a Bush administration privatization spokesperson (socialsecurity.org/sstw/sstw08-26-02.pdf). During that appearance, Fossella says Bush is on the right side of history on Social Security.

Donner and the grandson of one of Social Security's architects think this can be forgotten. In the letter to the editor and a 2005 constituent communication, Donner and Vito deny ever advocating Social Security privatization. Its one thing to change your mind on important policy (although Republicans derogatorily call it flip-flopping when Democrats exhibit such intellectual maturity) and another to deny holding the previous position to begin with, particularly when you've done so on national television.

Fossella during the 2006 campaign then changed his mind again concerning Social Security and said everything is on the table. Now Donner says Vito is against privatization again. If this isn't flip-flopping, I don't know what is.

ROY MOSKOWITZ CASTELTON CORNERS