Dear Mr. President –
It’s been a while since I last wrote, almost two years in fact. I have to say, it’s been a long while coming. You’ve accomplished quite a lot, and for most of that I am pretty appreciative.
There’s this thing, though, that keeps cropping up. It’s been really bothering me, and although I’ve tried to set my feelings aside, I have to talk about it. For starters, please don’t get me wrong, I still think you’re an okay guy.
What’s that thing, you ask? Well, it’s this.
Bipartisanship.
It keeps cropping up. More accurately, you seem to be letting it get in the way of accomplishing things. What bothers me about this, and from what I understand it bothers a lot of other people, too, is that you just seem to be a little too nice to the people who want to destroy us.
See, the problem here is that I didn’t vote for the Tea Party back in 2008. They’re out of their gourds, and they’re pretty damned stupid, to boot. I mean, let’s be serious here – Michelle Bachmann needs a long-sleeve jacket…and I mean a really long-sleeved one, see? I’d be surprised if she could spell “college,” much less ever have attended one. John Boehner is in the same boat – probably a bit smarter, but what he lacks in stupid he makes up for in dishonesty. And Mitch McConnell? Does the guy have an honest bone in his body?
And yet, when issues come up – there they are, yammering away, and you seem to just go along with it. Now granted, I liked the whole “Hey, sorry, assholes, I was busy nailing bin Laden to a tree.” That was good. But this entire business of worrying about the debt and listening to the GOP talking points as if they had some sense…let’s face it, Mr. President, they’ve got all the sense of a deer standing in front of a truck. Their top candidate, John McCain, had to have an aid whisper in his ear “Uh, sir, that economy thing – that’s where the other people, the ones who don’t have eleven houses, they live there – well, that economy thing, it’s in the shitter.” This was their candidate for the Presidency, sir. Supposedly the best they had to offer.
And he didn’t have a freaking clue. He was so completely oblivious, that when it struck him, he stupidly asked for a halt to the campaigning so he could appraise himself of the situation.
Now, the GOP is using the same playbook on you that they used on Clinton. Jabber about how bad the deficit is, as if they have any fiscal sense whatsoever. Allow me to point out, sir, what you have failed to do: that deficit is all theirs. They didn’t bitch in the slightest when it was their coke-head drunkard of a President running up the bill. They have no right to complain at all about it now, when it has become necessary to run a deficit in order to put people back to work, pay unemployment, and get some grease on the wheels of the economy.
It would make a world of difference to me, and to many like me, if you were to stand up and say something along the lines of:
“Ladies and gentlemen, for the past few months we’ve been regaled by the Republican leadership about the hazards of the national deficit, and the overall magnitude of the debt. And well we should hear it from them, who are responsible for it. They have not only told us all about it, but they have also blocked every effort we have made to jump-start this economy and get people back to work, instead focusing their attention on union-busting and calling for every citizen of the US to take the punishment for the actions of a select few, whose reckless gambling and insane spending habits have pushed this country to the brink of bankruptcy. And now they play political gamesmanship with your financial future again, threatening to let the country go bankrupt unless they get their tax breaks for the very people who caused this fiasco in the first place.”
You can then detail a few of their choicer idiocies, which I’m sure your staff can drum up for you. Or you could call Jon Stewart, he’s got tons of them. Four nights a week.
Then, you can deliver your knockout punch:
“You see, my fellow Americans, these people don’t believe we can make it. They don’t believe you deserve to retire gracefully. They don’t believe you deserve to maintain your health and dignity, regardless of age. They have theirs, and they’re happy to see you swing in the wind. But we will not allow that to happen. We, my fellow Americans, we will succeed in spite of them and their political hostage-taking. I am here to put in front of you a new plan for revitalizing our nation…”
And then you put forward the highlights of your plan to take the savings from ending our two off-books wars, ending of the Bush-era tax cuts, a re-direction of a major chunk of our military budget, and phase those monies into national infrastructure projects, aimed at shoring up the elements of our country that the GOP has foolishly allowed to decay – new roads, new bridges, new energy, new airports (with lots of new air traffic controllers), new rail systems. The things that will not only provide jobs in and of themselves, but will enable existing companies to get their goods to new markets faster and more efficiently, giving our economy not only the immediate jolt it needs to roll again, but also to provide the long-term benefit that will return us to being the powerhouse we were.
Now I know this kind of confrontation isn’t new to you – after all, you handed that pack of jackasses their hats when you showed up at their little congressional invitational event. I expect you even enjoy that sort of thing. At least, I hope you do.
When you deliver this kind of message – the message I voted for, two years ago – then I suspect you’ll see those poll numbers of yours take a good bit of a jump. Not only that, but you’ll leave the GOP quaking. Because you own the facts on these issues, Mr. President. They own squat. And calling them out on their lies is the one thing that will have them squirting their trousers faster than anything.
Those of us, the ones who have been waiting for the news, would really, really appreciate it.
It’d give us something to think about this fall. Instead of staying at home and watching re-runs of whatever is on at the moment, we might spend some time thinking that the President we elected isn’t afraid to kick the teeth in on a bunch of treasonous Republicans who’d rather throw the rest of us under the bus in order to grease their own wallets.
Hell, we might even come out of the house this November and vote “D” on our ballots.
Sincerely yours –
T