In attacking environmentalists for trying to ban the plastic additive BPA, Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute, in a Dec. 12 commentary published in the News Tribune ("Foes use BPA fears as a hobgoblin to scare Americans") told readers not to be swayed by the fear-mongering of his opponents.
He quoted Mencken on "menacing (the public) with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Good advice, but why does that remind me of the run-up to the Iraq War? Perhaps it's all the American Enterprise Institute scholars who spent the early part of this decade whipping up fear of the imminent destruction we faced from Saddam Hussein. Remember the discovery of all those weapons of mass destruction the American Enterprise Institute folks predicted we'd find? Yeah, me neither. I guess Green was just hoping we wouldn't think of his institute when he pulled out that snappy closing quote from Mencken.
Andrew Streitz
Duluth
