REBUTTAL

I don't think I've ever read as lengthy an Op Ed piece before that was based 100% on erroneous information as Jonathan Turley's Commentary on Horse Slaughter. Not one statement was factual.

First, to put Mr. Turley's mind at ease, no one, I'm sure not Senator Feinstein, not even proponents, think this issue should be included on our list of top national priorities. Such a list would include legislation similar to Senator Feinstein's Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2001, co-authored with Senator Kennedy, to keep terrorists out of the U.S. or the Senator's legislation on Port Security or Freezing the top income rate tax cut.

However, the American people also love horses both wild and domesticated and want to protect these living symbols of our heritage and culture against being cruelly slaughtered for the foreign markets. Any commerce is not good commerce, and there should be cultural restraints on international free-trade. And certainly our noble, beloved horses should not find themselves the victims.

Turley's entire opinion is based on his assertion that horses are also slaughtered for pet food therefore the bill is hypocritical. That is incorrect. No horses are slaughtered for pet food in this country, and no horse meat is contained in American distributed dog or cat food. Horses are only slaughtered in foreign-owned slaughter plants for export for human consumption.

His statement that the horse under Feinstein's Bill would "still involve stunning horse's with a 4-inch retractable bolt driven into the brain and hanging them by a hind leg before their throats are slit" is embarrassingly misinformed.

This is based on Turley's second incorrect assertion that slaughter and rendering are the same process. Slaughter and rendering are two different processes. If meat is to be used for human consumption the horse must be slaughtered in the cruel method described above, while alive with the heart still beating. If the horse is humanely put down by lethal injection and then rendered, the horse is dead when the carcass is processed resulting in the same myriad of by-products as a slaughter plant except the meat cannot be used for human consumption.

Skipping through and quickly rebutting the rest of Turley's folly:

Senator Feinstein's bill would PROHIBIT the export of American horses to Mexico or Canada for slaughter.

It is APPROPRIATE for the issue to be in Congress because the foreign-owned horse slaughter industry is inter-state involving export.

The California win was significant and was THE LARGEST WIN OF ANY ANIMAL INITIATIVE TO DATE.

Horse rescue at its best only comprises one percent of the American horses slaughtered each year. Over three million American horses have been slaughtered for the foreign markets in the last two decades.

And Turley's analogy about the cows and chickens? Cattle, sheep, swine, poultry are categorized as legitimate food and fiber animals, i.e., animals raised in this country and culture for the edible consumption of humans. The horse is not. Horses are pleasure, recreational and sporting animals. It is a very easy litmus test regarding any culture's hierarchy of animals.

And Senator Feinstein is correct that the horse has played a significant role in American history and culture. It was the horse that carried man into war and back. It was the horse that pulled our wagons over the Rocky Mountains and across the Western Plains. It was the horse that pulled our plows to plant our fields. It was the horse that delivered our mail. It was the horse that carried our goods from the docks. It was the horse that pulled our original fire wagons. It was the horse that carried Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride changing the course of American history. It is the horse today that takes our country to Olympic greatness. And during crisis, it is the horse that partners with law enforcement to protect us.

The only statement that Turley made that is correct is that you probably will see members of the legislature hashing out legislative details at one of their favorite restuarants, Morton's, over a good 20-once steak. What you won't see is them eating a dog, cat or horse.