Melissa Kruger’s (M.K.) Letter to the Editor (Renton Reporter, Sept 20) was entitled: “Palin’s positions are not “friendly,” then goes about showing us readers the examples she has for making this judgment.

I’ve liked John McCain since I was a kid. He’s a smart man, so this pick from my point of view shows to me that Mr. McCain knows what he’s doing.

Melissa Kruger (M.K.) stated that Gov. Sarah Palin had slashed funding for “Covenant House,” which is a place (in Alaska) for troubled youth and teen mothers, insinuating that it had to do with Palin’s pro-life stance.

That’s not the case here though. Covenant House is sponsored by a “religious group” similar to the one operated by Renton Highlands Community Church which does a great service in our community to recovering addicts, etc.

According to the executive director of Covenant House, Deidre Cronin, a Washington Post article was “misleading” and that they had actually received more money in 2008 than in 2007.

M.K. should have actually attacked the fact that “Covenant House Alaska” is a “faith-based” organization (that even quotes Jesus) upon the grounds of the “separation of church and state” like she actually did in the next paragraph in her letter, calling Mrs. Palin a “Religious extremist who doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state!” (M.K.’s accusation was false.) It’s called a double standard, Melissa Kruger, and ignorance on your part!

The book ban? Yeah, that took place! In someone’s mind on the Internet. One of the books she supposedly tried to ban in 1996 was the first of the Harry Potter series. It was published in 1998! (Maybe she is a religious prophet and knew the book was going to be written and wanted to “head it off on the pass?”)

Was Mrs. Palin a member of the “Alaska Independence Party?”

No! Lynette Clark, the director of the A.I.P. , retracted her original statement due to the fact that she used a secondary source, instead of looking up the primary source material, i.e., official membership document for verification. She has been a member of the Republican Party since 1982.

Her supposed failure of running a carwash? It never even broke ground and the property was sold! Now we can throw Mrs. Palin on the pile of history’s failures, like … Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, etc. … people who tried and fail repeatedly!

Lamont Faulkner

Renton