(What follows is mostly text from a press release we received late in September.  It struck a chord here at the magazine.  Our comments follow the PR text.)

HELP! MOM! THERE ARE LIBERALS UNDER MY BED hits bookstores on Tuesday, Sept 20, but it’s already a lightning rod for controversy.  The book’s conservative author (a mother of three) laughs off the allegations.

Liberals all over the country are up in arms over a book that portrays cartoon versions of left-wing icons Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy taxing and regulating a lemonade stand.  MSNBC host Ron Reagan was incensed over the book and scolded DeBrecht on his cable television show. Fox News host Alan Colmes claimed the book exists for the purpose of “brainwashing.” Democratic Underground, a popular liberal Web site, named DeBrecht to its “Top 10 Conservative Idiots” list. And Daily Kos, the most trafficked left-wing blog, likened the book to Nazi propaganda.

In spite of the unflattering comparisons to Hitler, LIBERALS UNDER MY BED author DeBrecht is nonplussed by the allegations. 

“What else would you expect from liberals?” shrugs DeBrect, a mother of three and co-captain of Security Moms for Bush. “Liberals have been foisting their ideological agenda on our kids for years, and now they’re beside themselves that someone would stand up to them. Evidently books about socialist fish and gay kings are OK, but a story about hard work and self-reliance is too extreme.”

DeBrecht asserts that no liberals have protested the presence of books such as Rainbow Fish (where a fish is hectored into giving away his beautiful scales so that all the fish look the same) and King & King (where two princes marry each other and adopt a little girl) in classrooms. She also points to the prohibition on prayer in school, attacks on the Boy Scouts, opposition to school choice, and the recent court ruling banning the Pledge of Allegiance because it contained the phrase “under God” as evidence of a liberal agenda targeting kids.

“Evidently liberals oppose parents who believe in traditional values having a book that will help them teach those values to their children,” says DeBrecht. “But, then again, liberals oppose anything that supports religion, traditional families, and the free market. Those institutions are obstacles to their goals of eliminating personal responsibility and establishing a welfare state.”

HELP! MOM! THERE ARE LIBERALS UNDER MY BED —which features full-color illustrations by award winning artist Jim Hummel—tells of two brothers who open a lemonade stand.  Their plans to save up their hard earned profits to buy a swing set go awry when a Ted Kennedy character taxes away their profits and a pants-suit clad Hillary Clinton look-alike outlaws sugary drinks.

About Katharine DeBrecht:

Katharine DeBrecht is a mother of three. A freelance newspaper reporter who previously worked in Washington, D.C., she is a member of the South Carolina Federation of Republican Women and served as that state's co-captain of "Security Moms for Bush." Ms. DeBrecht graduated cum laude from Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, where she studied political science and history. She currently resides with her husband and children in South Carolina.

OMED:  What you have read above is the truth.  When my children's book, Far Walker, came out, it was panned by the American Library Association because its message was not politically correct.  The book was also ignored by the Oregon Book Awards.  The reason?  I am politically incorrect. Oregon's liberals have our arts and literature by the throat. Non-liberals need not apply. When I tell people that the propaganda domination of the Left infuses even programming and literature for children, I often receive stares of disbelief.  For years I have wondered when the people of this state and of this nation will realize the truth.    

© 2005 Oregon Magazine