Dear Senators Reid, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Dodd, Kerry, Boxer, Webb, and Feingold; Dear Madame Speaker Pelosi; Dear Representatives Lloyd Doggett, Kucinich and Rahm Emanuel; Dear John Edwards, Dr. Howard Dean and Anyone With Any Sort Of Visible Presence On Television Or Anywhere Else;
How are you? I hope you are well. I write you tonight with a teeny-tiny request: I want you, my elected officials and the spokespeople of my party, to start calling this fucked-up Middle East mess what it is: George Bush's War.
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Dear Sens. Reid, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Dodd, Kerry, Boxer, Webb, and Feingold; Dear Madame Speaker Pelosi; Dear Representatives Lloyd Doggett, Kucinich and Rahm Emanuel; Dear John Edwards, Howard Dean and Dear Anyone With Any Sort Of Visible Presence On Televsion Or Anywhere Else;
How are you? I hope you are well. Speaking for myself, I'm having sort of a crappy day. I mean, hearing that my Democratic Senators and Representatives appear to have collectively (not singling anyone out here, you understand) rolled over for George Bush yet again... well, it tends to cast a pall over an otherwise pleasant, sunny day. 'Cause, you know, my pleasant May day is someone else's IED or traumatic brain injury. Really--while I'm down here in Austin, enjoying a few unseasonably cool days before the Texas heat kicks in, thousands of troops are praying to God that they make it home before their number comes up. I think about that often. I hope you do too.
Anyway... You know, I totally get that the byzantine machinations of Congressional politics are far beyond the ken of a naïf like me. I'm willing to consider giving y'all the benefit of the doubt on this issue. As a matter of fact, I want to. Otherwise all the hours I've spent registering voters, leafleting, and urging every discouraged Texas Democrat I meet to keep faith, well, that just all goes down the old toilet, doesn't it?
I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. But if you want to get, you gotta give. So here's what I want. I want you, my elected officials and the spokespeople of my party, to start calling this fucked-up Middle East mess what it is: George Bush's War.
It is not part of the War on Terror. It is not an insurgency. It is not a religious dispute. It is President George Bush's war. It is the product of a narrow, incurious, rigid, over-privileged mind. This war is the result of George W. Bush's reckless vendetta. This war is proof of what happens when narrow-minded and small-hearted people acquire great power. This is George Bush's War.
It certainly isn't my war, nor is it the war that the American people wanted. They wanted what they were promised: a just and honorable conflict, a struggle with a clear goal and a definitive end. Not this endless fucking nightmare of lost and ruined lives.
The majority of Americans want this war to stop. They do not believe in the value of this endeavor. It is not their war. And you, as the people's elected representatives were doing what George Bush in his arrogance refuses to do: You were executing their will. Or you were supposed to.
Imagine my dismay yesterday afternoon, when I read that George Bush is getting, yet again, what he wants. It put a bitter taste in my mouth. I almost regretted all that time spent urging my friends and even strangers to keep the faith, to believe in the Democratic Party, to remain hopeful for the future.
But I get it, sort of. I'm sure there was a very good reason. So in the meantime, I ask only that you use the phrase (or some variation) "Bush's War" every single chance that you get. No interview, no stump speech, no passing question about the War on Terror should be answered without at least one reference to the Decider's War.
Perhaps that sounds difficult. I am no speechwriter, but allow me to provide a few serving suggestions (previously published in a comment in another diary):
Given President's Bush's reckless determination to fight his war, we had no choice but to pass the supplemental.
President Bush has recklessly chosen to fight a war despite the wishes of the American people. We suppport the troops currently fighting in President Bush's war. so we passed the supplemental funding bill.
As long as we fight President Bush's war in Iraq, the real War on Terror remains unfought. Until President Bush changes course, Americans will never be safe.
Okay, you have pros doing this sort of work--they can write far better soundbites than I. Let them. Make them. Blanket the airwaves, print media, and the Internet with this one talking point: This is Bush's war.
This albatross must be hung around George Bush's neck and kept there until it rots. This is important on a a practical level as well as a moral level. There are many moderate Republicans that have come to question George Bush and his war (see how I did that just now? It's not so hard, is it? :) ), even if they haven't openly opposed it. Hang this albatross around George Bush's neck, and they'll back away from the stench. Come September (and I'll try very hard not to think about the lives lost and damaged in the meantime), you might be able to peel away enough votes to actually get something done.
I'll step a little further down this cynical path and suggest that if you keep that damned stinking albatross there until November 2008, we might see a Democrat in the White House. But that's down the road a piece. What's more important, since we still have troops stuck over there in Iraq--there in service of a small man's oversized dreams of power--is that we move as quickly as possible toward getting them the hell out of there.
You see, they need you. I need you. That's why we here put all that damned effort into putting you where you are. Don't fail us--at least, don't fail us any more than you, er, "have" to.
I know speaking simply is difficult for some of you. I suggest you start practicing now. Here's another sample phrase: "Wolf, I'm afraid this is George Bush's war. We have a duty to try to work with him, but he refuses to respect the wishes of the American people."
I'll be watching and hoping.
Best Regards,
Thorn