Steve Daines turns his back on his country for monetary gain, but no one gets up in arms about that, not even the Daily Inter Lake editorial board. But, on Sunday, July 27, in its editorial, the board hangs Sen. John Walsh out to dry with a 1/3 page condemnation of his plagiarism.

The Daily Inter Lake editorial had one thing right. Democrats are lining up to support John Walsh and rightfully so. Jon Tester said it right, “what’s the big deal?” I wonder how many other people in Washington, D.C., have done the same thing but just haven’t been caught. Forty years ago when he first ran for public office, Joe Biden did it, and now he’s the much respected vice president of the United States.

John Walsh is a very honorable and decent man who has served his state and nation for most of his adult life and has admitted to using someone else’s words without giving them credit. Sen. Walsh made a mistake. Steve Daines turned his back on America, closed U.S. Procter & Gamble plants, putting thousands of his employees out of work and shipping it all to communist China — in my opinion, un-American, dishonorable and a disgrace.

“Where’s the outrage?”

While Daines was making millions of dollars for himself and big business in China, John Walsh was fighting for his life and his country in Iraq making Army pay. Then Daines has the nerve to tell us in his campaign ads that he created 400 jobs in Montana. However, neither he nor the Daily Inter Lake mentions the thousands of Americans who lost their jobs in the U.S. when he packed up and moved to China.

“Where’s the outrage?”

Steve Daines talks about wanting more jobs and better health care for Montana citizens, yet he badmouths the very program that will do both, the Affordable Care Act. Even some of our local and state Republican politicians are seeing the benefits that other states are enjoying because of Medicaid expansion and would like to see it happen in Montana as well.

Daines and House candidate Ryan Zinke say they want less government, less politics. I wonder how our neighbors in Libby feel about statements like that. If it weren’t for the EPA and Max Baucus, many would still be dying because of the W.R. Grace mess.

Sen. John Walsh has paid his dues many times over with blood, sweat and tears defending our state and nation and the rights of its citizens to do pretty much what we choose whether it be ethical or not. It is my opinion that Daines chose to do wrong by his country and his employees and at the expense of his country and its citizens when he turned his back on America and moved to China.

“Where’s the outrage?”

Steve Daines is a member of the worst U.S. House of Representatives in the history of our nation and he did more than his share in making it that way and for this alone does not deserve to be promoted to the U.S. Senate.

To me and many others, the facts I just laid out about Daines’ activities leading up to the 2012 election and his hypocritical ads during the present campaign are of much more importance for the voting public to know than the editorial board’s “holier than thou” tongue lashing of Sen. Walsh’s plagiarism.

John Walsh hit the ground running in the U.S. Senate, is doing a fine job and deserves to be elected to a full term come November.

I will proudly vote for John Walsh because he has always worked for America, not turned his back on America like Steve Daines did.

Haines is a resident of Columbia Falls.