To the Editor:

Suppose we turn history upside down, we might have heard the following from famous and infamous people:

Noah: “It’s not going to rain.”

French King Louis XVI: “They’ll never get the guillotine to work.”

George Armstrong Custer: “There aren’t any Indians out there.”

In modern times, some equally preposterous lies have been said, but these are real:

Chicago Tribune (after the 1948 election for president): “Dewey Wins!”

Lyndon Johnson (1964): “We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”

George Bush (2005): “Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of yellowcake uranium from Africa.”

Now, in this current election, a local politician running for the N.C. House was heard to say something equally strange and out of touch.

Mike Clampitt: “Fracking is not an issue in this election.” 

Seriously. He said that. That statement might be true if Clampitt were running for a House seat on Mars, but not the 119th District in the N.C. Legislature. It could easily be argued that fracking is the dominant issue in the November election. Look at the signs on the side of road. Listen to the political debates. Read the letters in the newspapers. Watch the public protests. Check out all the communities — seven and counting in the 119th District — that have voted their objection to fracking our mountains.  

If Clampitt can say that fracking is not an issue here, he can say anything. Don’t be surprised if he does. 

Rick Bryson

Bryson City