News-Record.com

The following "letter" was submitted Thursday to the News & Record from authors in Summerfield.

It says in part:

In anticipation of a big vote in early September on estate tax repeal, our U.S. Senators should take heed of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's view that Congress offset estate tax repeal or costly reform proposals. We need some fiscal sanity in Washington.

Since 2001, there has been a $7 trillion swing from projected surpluses to record deficits, not counting trillions proposed for broader-based tax relief, shoring up Social Security, homeland security and the war in Iraq.

Then came the following letter from Greensboro:

In a big vote in early September on estate tax repeal, our U.S. Senators should take heed of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's view that Congress offset estate tax repeal or costly reform proposals. We need some fiscal sanity in Washington.

Since 2001, there has been a $7 trillion swing from projected surpluses to record deficits, not counting trillions proposed for broader-based tax relief, shoring up Social Security, homeland security and the war in Iraq.

And so on.

Such "coincidences" are called astroturf because they are misrepresented as the original thoughts of the individual letter writer. They are usually part of an orchestrated campaign in which the same letter (or slight variations thereof) is sent under different names to newspapers all over the country.

If we're able to catch them, we don't publish them.

We caught this one.