I found a great website - www.deargeorgeletters.com - where you can write a letter to George and they will even send it on to Georgie Boy.  They hope to use the letters in some kind of performance in October and are accepting letters until Labor Day, I believe.  Some of the letters are great.  They are pro (go figure!) and con.  They are serious, they are funny, they are sad.  I decided to slap George around a little bit.  I’m feeling mighty angry these days…

Dear George,

I’ll be clear from the beginning.  I did not want you as our President.  Like millions of others, I could see that you would not be good for our country.  But I've got to give you credit - you certainly have not failed to live up to my expectations since the Supreme Court anointed you CIC! 

Since you’ve been residing in the White House, the only color I see is red.  I’m so angry and so sad that you don’t give a damn about anyone, except those who know how to screw the next guy in order to wield money, power and influence.  You lie and you deceive, sporting that smart ass smirk that I’d just love to wipe off your face.   And just when I think maybe, just maybe, you and your cronies have committed your final act of deception, you start *looking into* how to postpone our national elections should there be another attack (hell, maybe without another attack) on our country.  Have you no shame?

As the current resident of the White House, you will bear the burden of the social injustices you have perpetuated on the people of this country when we defeat you in November and send you back to Crawford and the rock you crawled out from under.  And of course, having been the CIC, the aftermath of your pre-emptive strike against the sovereign nation of Iraq will lie squarely at your feet.  When you say ‘America is safer’ eight (8) times in a short speech, you must be trying to convince yourself that it’s true!  When recent polls show that the majority of people in this country no longer believe you are leading the country in the right direction or that the war in Iraq was worth it, you must need to reassure yourself with constant repetition and redundancy.

When you are back under you rock after November, I wonder if you will shed even one crocodile tear for the lies and deceit you used to hoodwink Congress and the American people into supporting your ill begotten war of choice?  Will you shed a tear for each of the almost 1000 soldiers who have died needlessly since you waged war on a sovereign nation that posed no real or imminent threat to our homeland (despite what you tried to make us believe - remember the mushroom clouds?)?  Will you shed a tear for the millions of jobs lost to outsourcing under your leadership?  Will you shed a tear for the millions of people that have either lost, or never had, health insurance since you took up residency in the White House?  Will you cry for the increasing number of families that have fallen into poverty since you were selected President (surely you know more people have fallen into poverty under your watch then any other Presidency?)?  Will you shed a tear for all the children left behind because of your unfunded, hypocritical No Child Left Behind legislation?  And will you ever shed even one tear for raping our environment and systematically dismantling all the protections meant to preserve our forests, pristine lands, oceans and everything that lives in them?

I think not.  A morally bankrupt individual like you doesn’t think twice about telling lies as a means to achieve their goal(s).  Someone like you is simply incapable of mourning the unnecessary loss of lives in a war of their own making or worrying about children going to bed without dinner or going to school with no shoes.  A morally bankrupt individual like you doesn’t care that a million more families lost health care yesterday or that unemployment benefits weren’t extended for people who have lost their manufacturing jobs to outsourcing.  And surely a morally bankrupt individual like you isn’t the least bit concerned when millions of people lose their life savings to the likes of Enron, while you and your cronies bestow tax give a-ways on Ken Lay and the boys. 

No.  Instead, you’ll take your smart ass smirk back to Crawford, laughing all the way as you remember the discriminating and mean spirited legacies you left behind.  You can start gloating about your war of choice that bred more terrorism, not safety.  Then you can gleefully recall the broken public school system you left behind (don’t you know, keep ‘em ignorant and they can’t fight back!).  And then how about celebrating that jobless economic recovery you’re so proud of where corporate America laughs all the way to the bank with unimaginable profits, while low wage jobs with no benefits await anyone lucky enough to find one?  And then you can really find cause to party when you think about the millions of families that have no health care because you let the HMOs and insurance companies price them right out of the market.  And how about another toast to the assaults you allowed on our environment under the auspices of your Clear Skies Initiative?  Oh yes, I can imagine the hours of joy you will experience as you review your contributions to this once great country of ours.

I doubt you will ever regret for one second how you first hoodwinked, then screwed, the people of this country.  When you take that smart ass smirk back to Crawford, I hope you plan to keep it there looking for bugs in the dirt.  I heard you say that you enjoyed looking for bugs in the dirt.  I think that's a perfect job for you because when we send you back to Crawford, I don’t want to see that smart ass smirk flashing across my TV screen or ruining my day when I pick up the newspaper.  In fact, when you foolishly spoke of sending a man to Mars a few months ago, I fantasized that you were the first man to go and we sent you with a one-way ticket!  I dreamed how wonderful it would be to have you banished from this planet after your reckless, ruinous, deceitful tenure as our selected President. 

So, George, I just can’t wait to try to duplicate that smart ass smirk of yours on November 2^nd when the polls close and we, the people, know we have a new face for America!  Start packing, Georgie.

Sincerely,

Sally Pina

San Francisco  

A lot of people there bring in magazines from home that they have finished reading, so that we can have a variety of reading material for just such an occasion. Someone recently brought a whole stack of Rolling Stone magazines, including the one with Howard on the cover. I walked into the break room, saw that picture of him on the cover with his arms folded and a huge smile. I immediately felt a pang and thought--almost out loud--"I miss him!"

Recently someone posted "I miss him" on the blog--I forget what it was in response to--and someone said, "He didn't go anywhere--he's right here!"

No, in a way he's not. At least not that Howard--the one on the cover of Rolling Stone. That's the one I miss. The one who said the most important thing we had to do was to change presidents, but also held fellow Democrats accountable.

I know he's doing what he has to do. It doesn't mean I have to like it. I plan to vote for (ick) Kerry, not Nader, but it doesn't mean I like the combo deal of a free ride for Kerry and constant anti-Nader stuff. I am especially disgusted with the mainstream ABB notion that Kerry can be as "lame as he wanna be" but we must wholeheartedly support him, never questioning, never asking anything of him.

Occasionally, of course, someone does try to ask more of Kerry. I highlighted some of these efforts in last month's post, "John Kerry, could you maybe go a BIT bigger?" And over at The Village Gate, I posted some of what George Lakoff has said about "framing":

Lakoff posited that moving to the right as a way to appeal to the middle would be a mistake because doing so would activate their conservative model within. Since the middle is torn between conservative and progressive tendencies, we need to speak to their progressive side. Rev. Jesse Jackson made a similar point when he said, "There needs to be a gap between Kerry and Bush and the bigger the gap, the bigger the margin of victory."

I know Howard still says this sort of thing from time to time, but what we seem to hear most is the "we need to support Kerry" message. Frankly, there are a lot of places we can hear that mantra. I'm seeing some people who were drawn to Howard Dean because he did speak the truth start to drift away because he is sounding so much like the "same ol' same ol'" lately. I believe we can do better than that. And I know Howard can.