When crude graffiti began appearing on highway bridges and roads in Pine County, most people blamed it on teenage vandals.
But this was not kid stuff. The alleged culprit isn't 16. He is 72 and is charged with criminal damage to property; and he thinks he is fighting liberals.

The graffiti -- apparently applied with rollers -- have combined support for the troops in Iraq with bathroom slurs aimed at Democrats. Repairs are estimated to cost $10,000, and, to some residents, the graffiti barrage has seemed like an anonymous assault on their beliefs.

"I talk to people on both sides of the aisle, and nobody likes this stuff," says Marlana Benzie-Lourey, editor and publisher of the Askov American, a weekly newspaper in Pine County. "It's trashy and it doesn't make us look too sophisticated ... put it that way."

For two years, scores of messages have appeared on overpasses and highways. Some are benignly partisan: "GEORGE W." Others, although patriotic in nature, seem sadly angry in a part of the state that has lost four soldiers in Iraq.

The most frequent graffiti have been "SUPPORT R TROOPS." Usually, the slogan has appeared with the S's written backward, leading to comic speculation that the Pine County graffiti artist, leaning over bridge decks, has trouble writing upside down. But at a time when people who question the war keep striving to support the troops, the slogan has seemed like arm-twisting.

"It's not as though people around here aren't thinking about the troops," said Benzie- Lourey. One local soldier killed in Iraq was her brother-in-law, Matt Lourey (the son of Becky Lourey, a DFL candidate for governor). Although he was from a family of Democrats, the graffiti assault in Pine County has targeted Democrats.

"ABORT DUMA-CRAPS," many of the messages have said. Benzie-Lourey says people on both sides of the political divide are upset by the messages, which have appeared from Hinckley to Duluth, including all along scenic Hwy. 23, the Veterans Evergreen Memorial.

"Many people have come to me who may not agree with me, but who tell me they care about the pain we felt after Matt's death," she says. "People know you can oppose a government policy and still be patriotic. They want to have a real conversation, not just splatter the highways back and forth."

The chief splattering suspect was apprehended on the morning of July 4th, after a sheriff's deputy spotted a pickup with paint cans and rollers in it parked on a bridge above Interstate Hwy. 35 near Willow River. On the side of the bridge, still wet, a fresh graffito said, "SUPPORT R TROOPS."

It had backward S's. And the highway department estimated the cost of repairs at $715.97.

The suspect is Robert Starcevich, 72, of Askov. He is charged with a felony (penalty: Up to five years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both).

I called Starcevich to ask about the charge against him. He hung up three times, but in between, he said this much:

"Liberals are the anals of America," he said, explaining that he was referring to a certain orifice. He said he had seen Vietnam veterans spat upon and wants to make sure it doesn't happen to veterans of Iraq. I told him everyone seems to agree with that.

He said Democrats are traitors.

"You see what they are doing? I consider them traitors to the troops."

He would not tell me if he is a veteran or is a retired farmer or anything else. That is his right, as it is his right to support the troops, to hate Democrats and to express his opinions. He just can't do it on the sides of highway bridges, at $715.97 a crack.

Starcevich may not be the Pine County Splatterer. He is entitled to a presumption of innocence. But he has certainly been caught up in the vicious name-calling that passes for politics these days, when anyone who opposes the bloody war in Iraq is being called a friend of Osama and a supporter of fascism. I can almost understand why someone might take up paint rollers to carry the name-calling to the highways.

I just hope that's as far as it goes.

Messages crude, patriotic -- but the medium is illegal

That's kind of funny, really.

Very stupid, but funny!