An 'obfuscation of facts' 

Al Fonzi's most recent column ("Beraud's vote," Feb. 27) is clearly a response to Shane Eaton's Feb. 13 letter ("The real story about Ellen Beraud's vets memorial vote") exposing Mr. Fonzi as a political operative who uses political action committees to spread misinformation, dirty tricks, half-truths, and possibly outright lies to influence our community. Hopefully your readers didn't miss that his column first offers a wholesale concession of Eaton's point that Beraud's vote was design-related, and second, it does nothing to defend Eaton's evidence that Fonzi is coordinating with a PAC that desperately misrepresents Beraud's motives.

Here I quote Al Fonzi: "Councilwoman Ellen Beraud pulled item No. 6, 'approval of the Veterans Memorial.' She attempted to revisit the design ... ."

The shady PAC, to which Fonzi donated $250, is not claiming Ms. Beraud has a terrible sense of aesthetics; it claims she doesn't respect our veterans. However, Mr. Fonzi himself concedes that her vote was over design. I suspect that anyone who has seen our veterans memorial understands that a reasonable case can be made that it is quite visually unpleasant and that our veterans deserve better.

Rather than own up to his PAC contributions, Mr. Fonzi engages in what he might call, "an obfuscation of facts," by directing our attention toward fallacious appeals to emotion; non sequiturs; and outright conjecture about dead soldiers, Jacques Cousteau's art collection, and political motives of which Mr. Fonzi can have no actual knowledge.

Please find a local conservative who can do conservative thought justice. There are smart conservatives in our community. I'd be happy to introduce you to some.

John Patrick

Atascadero