EDITORIAL: No, it's not a mandate

This is in response to the Nov. 13 staff editorial titled, "The McEuen Mandate."

It is never lost on me that so many people who make their livings with their mouths do so much to destroy the meaning of words. In the same breath this editorial links 29 percent voter turnout with the word, "mandate." A simple majority of 29 percent is less than 15 percent (51 percent of 29). This is not, and never can be, a mandate. These election results are lukewarm endorsements at best. But this type of self-congratulatory blearing of meaning is typical of the Coeur d'Alene Press.

"In all walks of life, a few people do most of the heavy lifting. Inventors and entrepreneurs..."

Here the staff writer does not even bother to put "heavy lifting" in quotation marks. This type of thinking is behind the anti-worker, pro 1 percent Republican agenda. All this heavy lifting must leave him exhausted at the end of his day. A sycophant's work is never done.

We all need to remember something: You cannot have 7-Eleven without the clerk, a school without the janitor, a Walmart without the cashier, a bank without the teller, and yes, you cannot have Hagadone Hospitality without the men and women who bus the tables, turn the sheets and clean the toilets. The Republican Party ignores that fact at ITS peril.

The idea man's first idea has always been that the idea man is worth more than anyone else. But ideas without execution, manufacture, delivery, maintenance, repair and service are actually worthless. In elevating the value of ideas at the expense of the real work it takes to make them real we undermine the meaning and value of real work.

When the Tea Party folks finally realize that their investments are misaligned with this Republican agenda against valuing real work we will perhaps begin to rebuild the more perfect union our forefathers envisioned.

Oh and for what it's worth, I'm one of those entrepreneurs who actually lifts heavy things for a living.

STEPHEN BRUNO

Hayden