
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 1, 1993                   TAG: 9307010605
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

OLIVER NORTH IS PATRIOT, STATESMAN

THE LIBERAL media is at it again. They just don't get it. Your editors have already started the campaign to vilify Lt. Col. Oliver North. The fact that he served as a dedicated soldier in the Marines and as a successful government employee means nothing to you. You prefer the likes of our president who refused to serve in the military and who was governor of a state for 12 years, unknown until recently by most of the nation.

North served his country well in the dangers of war and as a servant of a government endeavoring to bring peace to Nicaragua. He and his family suffered grievously as a fanatical lawyer spent some $26 million of our tax money trying unsuccessfully to convict him. His convictions were ultimately overturned by virtue of our Constitution, the same one that you espouse only when you believe it serves your liberal causes.

Now that it is a fact that he is widely respected and admired by the majority of Virginians and is likely to be the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, you commence to get out your axes and try to chop him to political death with the same lies and innuendos that were tossed about during the disgraceful and unsuccessful trying of him in Congress and in the courts.

North is a patriot and a statesman, unlike the one who now occupies the White House as the so-called leader of our great nation.

GERALD J. FLYNN VINTON

by CNB