Andrew Borene gets some nice ink . . .

Nick Coleman has been back on the beat after a few weeks parental leave. He has a great column today on why it is time to talk about the Iraq war as grownups. The reason for mentioning this here rather than on The Cucking Stool is that along the way Nick made some nice comments about Andrew Borene, who is running for the Senate seat currently held by Geoff Michel. An excerpt:

The troops are not coming home yet, but the war's fallout seems to be. And Minnesota may be one of the hot spots in a coming political debate over the lies that got us into war and the truths that must be faced.

"We're going to have a debate on Iraq," says Andrew Borene, an ex-Marine lieutenant who served in Iraq and wants to serve in the state Senate from Edina. "Bush and Rove and the neocons oversold the threat that Iraq made to the U.S. Now, the war is going to become a public issue."

If Iraq becomes part of a debate over the direction of this country, it will be because a new breed of candidates are taking off their uniforms and taking on the tough questions, criticizing the war and defending the troops. Candidates like Andrew Borene and Tim Walz.

Walz, 41, is a Mankato high school history teacher who recently retired from the Minnesota National Guard after 24 years of service, including overseas duty guarding an air base as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. He is gaining attention as a Democrat running against First District U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a pro-war Republican.

"This thing is a mess and people are starting to wake up," Walz says about the war. "They told us our troops would be greeted as liberators, that they would be home in six months and that we'd be building Wal-Marts in Iraq. We got in under false pretenses and now all they tell us is, 'Buck up.' "

"Buck up" doesn't cut it anymore. Voters want truth-telling.

"I'm only running for the Legislature, but I am getting more questions about Iraq than state fiscal policy or education," says Borene. "Iraq has become a huge issue on people's minds. People don't feel they are getting the honest story about what's happening, or why the troops aren't getting what they need."

Borene, a fresh-faced 30, was a Marine intelligence officer in the invasion of Iraq. Now he plans a run as a DFLer for the state Senate seat held by Geoff Michel, a conservative Republican who marches to the tune of the Tax Evaders League, the "no new taxes" gang that won't be happy until we are fighting for food in the ditches with clubs.

Spotty has called Taxpayers League Republicans "social Darwinist hunter gatherers," but Coleman's words are more colorful.