Regarding your Aug. 16 Under the Dome item "Etheridge: 'Keeping in touch' or campaigning?":

If it looks, talks and walks like a duck, it is a duck. Or in this case, a "franking privilege."

The mailer that U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge sent out is so clearly campaign fodder that I wish I could have seen how hard his spokesman was laughing when he said it was only a "keeping in touch" mailer. Even an Etheridge spokesman could not possibly believe that.

And if this mailer was cleared by a "bipartisan House panel" it would clearly show the cronyism that is instilled in a system where egocentric incumbents look out only for themselves.

Bobby Alsobrooks

Clayton