My latest letter to Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mi)

To the Honorable Fred Upton:

I’ll take the Constitution, thank you. You are my representative and I am asking you to either explain the actions and policies of this president, or act to rid us of him.

I’m not sure what the motivation of the Bush administration has been. He says he’s protecting freedom, yet he ignores the fourth amendment. He says he supports the troops and clandestine services, yet he leaks the identity of a CIA operative for political purposes.

I trust the Constitution. I don’t trust George W. Bush. I cannot know Bush’s motives, and frankly I don’t give a damn why he does the idiotic things he does. I didn’t vote for him and wish he had never come out of his Texas backwater. He is the chief executive charged with enforcing the Constitution and he is not doing it.

I have elected representatives who are charged with checking and balancing the president when he is negligent or incompetent. Do it. The administration must be called to answer for the travesties of unnecessary war, raging federal deficits, buildings falling down, governmental incompetence, personal irresponsibility, war profiteering, lying, no-bid contracts, cherry-picked intelligence, “thousands” of tactical military errors, etc, etc.

We’ve had enough and our country is at stake. Now the time is over for negotiation and deliberation. If my elected officials will not call out this administration and this buffoon of a president, then who will?

We have a Constitution that provides remedies for these criminally negligent policies and actions. Mr. Upton, I know you are a Republican, and despite that character flaw you earned my vote the last two election cycles mainly because I (perhaps foolishly) believed that one should vote for the man and not the party.

Dig deep, Mr. Upton, and do the right thing. Act to impeach this hollow fart of a man before he damages this nation further. You are my representative, do what is best for your constituency. Impeach him. Or explain to me why not.

(Signed)

"My sheep hear my voice..."

and I know them, and they will follow." John 10:27.


From the Cunning Realist:

A striking exchange from President Bush's Q+A session with an audience in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday:

Q: You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you'd like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are --

THE PRESIDENT: I'm not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what's your question?

Q: Okay, I don't have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I -- in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and --

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec -- let him speak.

Q: And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself.

History's proven that the greatest danger to a nation sometimes is not a wayward leader, but the unthinking masses desperate to surrender freedom to someone---anyone---promising to "protect" them. It's during those times that the individual's most lethal enemy is not his government, but his next-door neighbor.

Instead of "booo," the audience at the president's event might just as well have bleated "baaahhh."

-- Cunning Realist

Artwork attribution: Millie Ballance, who is not responsible for the editorial content.