Wrote a saddened Boone, Keillor "... has poked fun at, but with compassion and understanding, folks with opposing views and habits, and helped us to perceive their values as well as their weaknesses – in other words, their humanity.

"So what happened? I’ve been stunned to read this un-Keillor-like tirade sent to me off the Internet.

"It’s so angry, lopsided, biased and just plain unfair that I thought it might have been penned by the same man who made up the 'documents' that have now doomed Dan Rather and CBS news.

"But no, there’s too much erudition, it’s too literate and well written to have been created by anybody but Garrison.

"He’s either been sitting in a garret somewhere for too long, or perhaps sat through a week’s screenings of Michael Moore’s trashy schlockumentary, or maybe he lost his antidepressants.

"But whatever the cause, it has obviously warped the kind spirit and even the perceptions of this poet/philosopher."

Boone is especially saddened by Garrison's labeling all Republicans and the Republican Party itself ... "as dumb, selfish and self serving, greedy and grubby and almost subhuman. Sort of political trailer trash, in his view."

Boone continued, "That astounds me most of all. I’m a Republican, my parents were Republicans, and there are some forty or fifty million of us, Garrison.

"A great many of us have loved and appreciated you, and still do - for your talents and your contributions to the American scene.

"We hope you’re not like Alec Baldwin or Barbra Streisand and any of the other 'celebrities' who have vowed to leave the country if George Bush was elected the first time (but didn’t).

"It looks more and more as if all the millions and millions that George Soros and others have spent trying to buy the Oval office in this election are going to be wasted, because the polls show us that the majority of likely voters, a growing majority, are convinced that George Bush and his administration are what we need for the next four years, especially given the alternative."

Boone closed with this admonition for the pride of Lake Wobegon: "I hope you’re not one of those who, like poor sappy Ron Reagan, criticize this president for being out front and open in his expressions of faith. In that regard, he’s walking in the same tradition as George Washington and Franklin and Jefferson and Hamilton and Adams and Monroe and Lincoln, and yes, Ron's dad himself – not bad company.

"Contrast that with a candidate whose own church and whose own pontiff does not want the candidate to receive communion because he is living and campaigning in opposition to the dictates of his own church!

"Garrison, oh Garrison, where art thou? Have you been living in New York City too long? The millions who have loved and admired you through the years don’t want you to become a sour, jaundiced, vituperative propagandist. We already have Michael Moore for that – please, gentle soul, come back to us."

Keillor may be too far gone, however. He's been on the campaign trail for the Democratic Party this year and, as the AP reports, has been raising a lot of money for his cause.

"Party officials said Keillor has raised more than $250,000 from personal appearances, along with generating plenty of enthusiasm for the party," wrote the AP.

"This election is for the soul of our country," Keillor told an Austin audience during a recent fund-raiser.

And speaking of souls, at the end of his article, Keillor defends his screed by invoking Dante: "Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece."

Aside from the obvious grammatical gaffe (one speaks or holds one's peace, not "piece"), isn't it John Kerry's intention to partner with France, Germany and the rest of the do-nothing U.N. to remain above the fray, i.e. stay neutral, where threats to the U.S. are concerned, for example Saddam Hussein?

Editor's note: