The net that shall enmesh them all
Edited, Written, and Published by Josh Nossiter
Thursday, January 6th, 2005
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
2371 Rayburn HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Nancy,
Please don’t worry about offending us if you and your colleagues challenge the certification of Ohio’s electoral votes. In fact, we’d be thrilled to bits. We want, no beg, you to ask how it is that voting machines were moved from Democratic to Republican neighborhoods, forcing would-be Democratic voters to stand in line for many hours in the rain. We implore you to investigate the precinct in Franklin County, Ohio, whose electronic voting system gave George W. Bush 3,893 votes out of a total of 638 votes cast, the voting machines that recorded Bush votes when the Kerry button was pushed, the thousands of voters erroneously purged from the voting rolls.
And while you’re at it, we won’t be in the least offended if you vote to reject the nomination of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General. His contempt for the Geneva Conventions, his legal arguments for the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. military prisons, his defense of the expansion of Executive Branch powers, relentless protection of White House secretiveness, and legalistic justifications for the assault on civil liberties carried out by the Bush Administration, all disallow him from becoming the highest representative of the law in the land. So why allow it?
We truly won’t be offended if you denounce the President’s plan to undermine the Social Security system and fatten Wall Street wallets by “privatizing” Social Security accounts. We certainly won’t be offended if you demand that money stop being wasted on missile defense. We especially won’t be offended if you insist that U.S. troops leave Iraq immediately.
You won’t offend us at all if you stand up for a restoration of both funding and independence at the FDA, the EPA, and the SEC. Far from it. We like being protected from dangerous prescription drugs, harmful pollution, and crooked corporations. Honest.
We’re really not as easily offended as you think. Or at least we’re not offended by outspokenness, courage, honesty, and the defense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, those fine Jeffersonian principles now threatened with extinction by your opponents across the aisle. On the other hand, here’s what does offend us: pusillanimity and poltroonishness, and a cowed and craven, timorous, timid and tentative Democratic party.
In the movies, the audience always cheers when the skinny kid stands up to the playground bully. You and your colleagues might try something along those lines. No one, believe me, will take offense if you stop rolling over and playing dead.
Sincerely,
A Constituent
PS Please don’t be offended.
*http://www.iht.com
©Joshua C. Nossiter, 2005
