[As the De-Bushification of America begins, posterity beckons...]
APR 18, 2004 07:23 AM
Dear Mr. Bush:
I write this as a concerned citizen of democracy. I think you are unfit for public office. I think that you are a scared, unintelligent man who has been led along by handlers your whole life. I do not think you are an evil man, because life is more complex than a comic book, but you are clearly in over your head as commander of the free world.
I base this opinion on what I've read about you over the years, what I've seen on television, and what you have said and done. My suspicions were first aroused when I realized that the son of a president was running for president. It was cemented when your brother (also, the son of the same president) governed the state where much fraud and mismanagement led to a questionable election. Since then, you have not proven me wrong.I even gave you a pass on being a conservative fundamentalist Christian, and a recovering alcoholic or drug addict, whichever you are/were. I've never considered the silly fact that you were a cheerleader at Yale. I could have cared less about dodging Vietnam with your old man's clout. Who wouldn't? None of those things hurt my opinion of you.
It was mostly my belief that your family has been profiteering off of war and military contracts through much of the twentieth Century. Your grandfather had assets frozen for working with the Nazis. Your dad now buys faltering defense contractors, then peddles them off to foreign dignitaries, including Arab dignitaries. He had worked his way up the N.S.A ladder, through those lean Ford years, and met many like-minded people you now surround yourself with. His involvement with oil interests, here and in the Middle East, are well documented. You were groomed to be president, Mr. Bush. And that is what bothers me most. Because, now, we need a real leader, someone we can trust not to screw up the world any worse than it is. You have no credibility with the Arab world, you have no credibility with the European world, you have no credibility with the Jewish world. You don't even have credibility with Republicans.
I am glad that the oil industry gave you Dr. Rice. She did such good work for them, here and abroad, that they named an oil tanker after her. She really was a sharp person, and she helped you through the darkest day in American History. But she's not making sense anymore. I'm glad that she wouldn't take the fall, that she got good advice from former national security advisers, like your dad, on how to avoid responsibility: restate the question in as convoluted and wordy terms as possible, then give "preliminaries" before answering the question, then give a short official answer that defies controversy. If anyone gets testy, just ask to be able to finish the question just asked, and why a more thorough and thoughtful explanation would aid the examiners. She sweated them out without saying much, but she didn't help you at all.
If I could ask you two questions that no one has already asked, I think they'd be these: First, have you ever met Osama bin Laden? I mean, like, in your earlier years, at some fabulous sultan's party or a Republican "freedom fighter" fundraiser. If yes, I'd like to hear about it. If no, I wonder if any would dispute that assertion. Second, why were so many unrevealed members of bin Laden's house ushered out of the country without incident after 9/11? I can't understand that. I understand protecting them if they are friends, but I don't understand allowing them to fly when no one, NO ONE ELSE, except your military, was allowed to get to their flight destinations. I also wonder why no agency questioned those soon to be whisked away members of bin Laden's house before violating the national no-fly that was a consequence of a terrorist attack.
Maybe you'll provide new answers during your testimony before the 9/11 commission, but I'd guess Mr. Cheney will be there to make sure that doesn't happen. He and Rumsfeld and Ashcroft all learned that with your old man in the Nixon years.
I don't want you to resign. I want you to stay in office until the election. You can leave immediately after the election, but you don't have to. You can stick around for inauguration day, as long as your shredding and deletions are prevented. We'd all feel safer with you, the weak and humiliated world leader, than your crazy VP. That guy's really dangerous. From Enron to Halliburton, he's profiteering from war as his moral progenitors did before, and he continues to foster chaos in world matters.
You were never worthy of the stewardship mandated by the Office of the President. You were so intertwined with oil, guns, the military-industrial complex, Yale, etc., that you never had a chance to be the independent leader of a free nation. All decisions were made for you by those who have been enriching themselves off of the misery of others, here and abroad, for generations. You're too enmeshed in the faltering pro-Republican aristocracy of this once great nation to be an honest politician. There are very few honest politicians these days; at least, very few who don't have to cater to special interests, but your special interests trouble me deepest.
Apologize. In your vernacular, repent. You have been misled down a difficult path, and you did not resist it strong enough. You have made bad moral, ethical, fiscal and political decisions. We don't need to go into every one of them, but you could certainly address a few. Put us at ease by shifting your stances toward peace, toward mutual respect for all persons, American or otherwise. Put us at ease by conceding that your priorities have changed, that you want the Muslim world - both peaceful, loving Muslims and those inclined to hate our leadership - to understand that our actions in the Middle East are now unconscionable.I hope you come to terms with your trecherous place in history. Perhaps you could turn things around for yourself after you've left public life, write a book called, "I'm Sorry," or "I Lied To You A Lot Because I Was Told To," or "The Whole Truth: My Family, My Jesus, My Oil." Just sit down and write it. Your computer will automatically check spelling for you.
Finally, a word about Christ. Instead of parroting brainwashed Amway distributors on the topic of "Christ in your heart," why don't you try directly helping the poor, the sick, the forgotten in our society? If you do, you'll have earned my respect for the first time during your otherwise shameful (or should I say shameless?) life.
Here's to our Post-Bush Century.
Sincerely, Bloomsday
