An Open Letter to the American Government
“Dear baby, welcome to Dumpsville, population: you.” - Homer Simpson
I have new hope, possibly unfounded, that the Democrats in charge of Congress are beginning to realize that not only do they possess real power, but that their main opponent is crippled by internal incompetence and staggering unpopularity. Passing veto bait domestic bills is useful on some level, showing the folks back home just how much you could get done with a Blue living at 1600 and all that, but it’s largely pointless. Problems with our medical system, educational system and economy will still be with us a year from now. We’ve managed to postpone dealing with them so far, another dozen months or so isn’t going to kill too many people. The Iraq War, though, is killing people right now and any rational prioritization of the work required to clean up the messes of Bush the Younger has to start with that. Getting into a serious knock down drag out budget fight with this man poses few real risks and offers almost incalculable rewards.
In that spirit, I present an open letter to our fearless leaders:
Dear Shitbags,
Quit fucking around.
Signed,
Everyone Else
Cathartic as that was it didn’t strike quite the right tone. Let’s try it again:
Dear Congress,
Running out the clock on this Administration, while certainly an appealing option, isn’t a cost neutral strategy. The longer the mistakes of Bush the Younger are allowed to go uncorrected the more costly (in every way you can think of) they are going to be to fix. The man’s approval rating hovers around thirty percent; Cholera is more popular than he is. Standing up to him is win-win. You will become more likeable by doing so and in the process you might manage to change things for the better.
Moreover, the minority who still like him are probably lost. Everything we’ve been though so far hasn’t changed their minds; if they were going to stop liking this President they would have done so by now. At some point, one that we have likely already passed, it stops being about performance and simply becomes an issue of loyalty and/or stubbornness. They are beyond hope or redemption so there is little more you can do than to simply say, “Screw ‘em.”
That leaves the rest of us, the overwhelming majority, who don’t approve of this wretched man or his foolish war. End the war and please us and we’ll re-elect you to your cushy Washington jobs. We promise. Don’t fear excoriation at the hands of press people and pundits, the American people want all the troops home within a year by a two to one margin. I don’t mean to be telling tales out of class or anything, but we-the-voters count more than they-the-talkers do. We vote, donate and applaud, what more could any politician ask for?
Their oceans of spilled ink, uncountable hours of television and who knows how many trillions of colored pixels amount to nothing more than yesterday’s news. We know what we want - the war to end, immediately if not sooner - and if you don’t do it, we’ll elect someone who will. Please forgive the cliché, but ordinary Americans, people who do not obsessively follow tracking polls, who do not wait with baited breath for the quarterly fund raising numbers, who do not know the names of national political reporters, will be casting the ballots. It is we who will have the final say.
Sincerely,
The Great Majority of the American People
P.S. If you want to indict, try and convict Dick Cheney while you’re at it, we won’t mind in the least.
