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Skriven 2006-09-04 01:43:00 av ROSS SAUER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Bush supporter
======================
Your typical Bush supporter...

Messages crude, patriotic -- but the medium is illegal
.
Nick Coleman, Star Tribune
Last update: September 01, 2006 12:00 AM

When crude graffiti began appearing on highway bridges and roads in Pine 
County, most people blamed it on teenage vandals.
But this was not kid stuff. The alleged culprit isn't 16. He is 72 and 
is charged with criminal damage to property; and he thinks he is 
fighting liberals.

The graffiti -- apparently applied with rollers -- have combined support 
for the troops in Iraq with bathroom slurs aimed at Democrats. Repairs 
are estimated to cost $10,000, and, to some residents, the graffiti 
barrage has seemed like an anonymous assault on their beliefs.

"I talk to people on both sides of the aisle, and nobody likes this 
stuff," says Marlana Benzie-Lourey, editor and publisher of the Askov 
American, a weekly newspaper in Pine County. "It's trashy and it doesn't 
make us look too sophisticated ... put it that way."

For two years, scores of messages have appeared on overpasses and 
highways. Some are benignly partisan: "GEORGE W." Others, although 
patriotic in nature, seem sadly angry in a part of the state that has 
lost four soldiers in Iraq.

The most frequent graffiti have been "SUPPORT R TROOPS." Usually, the 
slogan has appeared with the S's written backward, leading to comic 
speculation that the Pine County graffiti artist, leaning over bridge 
decks, has trouble writing upside down. But at a time when people who 
question the war keep striving to support the troops, the slogan has 
seemed like arm-twisting.

"It's not as though people around here aren't thinking about the 
troops," said Benzie- Lourey. One local soldier killed in Iraq was her 
brother-in-law, Matt Lourey (the son of Becky Lourey, a DFL candidate 
for governor). Although he was from a family of Democrats, the graffiti 
assault in Pine County has targeted Democrats.

"ABORT DUMA-CRAPS," many of the messages have said. Benzie-Lourey says 
people on both sides of the political divide are upset by the messages, 
which have appeared from Hinckley to Duluth, including all along scenic 
Hwy. 23, the Veterans Evergreen Memorial.

"Many people have come to me who may not agree with me, but who tell me 
they care about the pain we felt after Matt's death," she says. "People 
know you can oppose a government policy and still be patriotic. They 
want to have a real conversation, not just splatter the highways back 
and forth."

The chief splattering suspect was apprehended on the morning of July 
4th, after a sheriff's deputy spotted a pickup with paint cans and 
rollers in it parked on a bridge above Interstate Hwy. 35 near Willow 
River. On the side of the bridge, still wet, a fresh graffito said, 
"SUPPORT R TROOPS."

It had backward S's. And the highway department estimated the cost of 
repairs at $715.97.

The suspect is Robert Starcevich, 72, of Askov. He is charged with a 
felony (penalty: Up to five years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both).

I called Starcevich to ask about the charge against him. He hung up 
three times, but in between, he said this much:

"Liberals are the anals of America," he said, explaining that he was 
referring to a certain orifice. He said he had seen Vietnam veterans 
spat upon and wants to make sure it doesn't happen to veterans of Iraq. 
I told him everyone seems to agree with that.

He said Democrats are traitors.

"You see what they are doing? I consider them traitors to the troops."

He would not tell me if he is a veteran or is a retired farmer or 
anything else. That is his right, as it is his right to support the 
troops, to hate Democrats and to express his opinions. He just can't do 
it on the sides of highway bridges, at $715.97 a crack.

Starcevich may not be the Pine County Splatterer. He is entitled to a 
presumption of innocence. But he has certainly been caught up in the 
vicious name-calling that passes for politics these days, when anyone 
who opposes the bloody war in Iraq is being called a friend of Osama and 
a supporter of fascism. I can almost understand why someone might take 
up paint rollers to carry the name-calling to the highways. 

I just hope that's as far as it goes.

Copyright 2006 Star Tribune. 
425 Portland Av. S., Minneapolis, MN 55488 (612) 673-4000

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