Soapbox

I Have Arrived!

I feel so special!

You know, I write a lot of letters. Letters to my congressmen, letters to television shows that allow professional character assassin Ann Coulter to enrich herself by being interviewed her on their show, and of course, letters to newspapers.

Recently the Columbus Dispatch published one of my letters, written in response to another letter. This is my text:

I respond to the letter of 5/21 telling us all to calm down, because the newest revelation about the Bush administration’s assault on civil liberties is no big deal.

The writer begins by assuring us that Bush is only eavesdropping on our conversations if we are talking to al Qaida. And he bases that assurance on what? On the fact that President Bush says so? George Bush: the same man who said he was not spying without warrants at all when he was? Who told us there was “no doubt” Sadaam had WMD’s when he knew there was doubt? Who signs hundreds of laws he has no intention of following and intimidates government scientists into falsifying data to support his policies? Sorry; this president has been caught lying too many times to get by with “trust me” ever again. We need proof.

The writer then informs us that the governmental data mining operation is completely benign and similar to that engaged in by many corporations. Perhaps he should have read the previous page of that day’s Dispatch, where Attorney General Alberto Gonzales makes it clear that the Bush administration (which doesn’t care what information they leak or whom it hurts) will prosecute any journalist who exposes the truth- excuse me, publishes classified information. Tracking calling patterns enables the government to intimidate reporters by tracking down whom they call and who called the people they called, to stop the flow of information and silence the press. There is nothing benign about this in a so-called democracy!

If president Bush was really concerned about national security he would be actually securing our nation: inspecting cargo, not selling off America’s debt to hostile foreign powers and not threatening war with Iran and cold war with Russia when he can’t even handle the two wars he has already started, etc. While a certain amount of spying is indeed necessary, his behavior to date makes it clear that the Bush administration is more concerned with “administration security” than national security.

If that’s not worth being upset about, I don’t know what is.

T.L. Meisky

Columbus, OH

By my standards, that’s pretty benign. I got a couple of phone calls the day after it ran from a few friends and a stranger who apparently looked me up in the phone book and congratulated me on countering some of the Republican spin that allows them to twist our democracy into something unrecognizable.

So yesterday, I got a postcard in the mail. Well, it was addressed to Ted, but it was clearly meant for me. With no opening salutation and no closing or signature, it read as follows:

You forget the part about the stolen elections and big, bad Carl (sic) Rove. You have to be an idiot (already obvious) to believe there were no WMD’s. You probably think there are no IED’s. Did you serve in the military? I doubt it. Every morning I thank GOD we have Bush and not Gore or Kerry. My only fault with Bush is that he didn’t nominate Kennedy for the Supreme Court. Bush or any democratic president can tap my phones, read my mail or do anything else they please.

At first I thought this was a fake, and skipped to the bottom to see if it was signed by my friend Marj (who works investigating voting fraud in Ohio) or someone else, because it just seemed too pat: too textbook, knee-jerk Republican to be real. I mean, do people really talk this way?

Also the reference to Kennedy on the Supreme Court leaves me puzzled: first of all, because there already IS a Kennedy on the Supreme Court…and he’s a pretty liberal judge. Clearly the writer is confused about more than a few things.

I was finally convinced of the authenticity of this missive by the fact that it was addressed to the wrong person. Apparently this crank (I’m guessing man, but who knows) also pulled out the phone book and wrote to the only Meisky he found there, assuming his poison arrow was on target.

I found this to be just precious! Some scared little conservobot got angry enough at my humble letter to write an anonymous piece of hate mail… to the wrong person. I guess that means I am doing something right…?

Ted was disappointed that it wasn’t signed. He wanted to track this guy down and say something to the effect of: “I’m sorry that some letter got you so upset that you spent 24 cents to bitch about it . Bad news though: I didn’t write it. Does it make you feel better to insult a stranger who had nothing to do with what made you angry? .”
I guess he doesn’t find it quite as funny as I do. I was only disappointed that it wasn’t written in crayon and wasn’t even more stupid. I’ve written some really liberal stuff in my time, and I think I deserve truely high-quality hate mail~ but i suppose this will do.

I was particularly touched, though, by the reference to being fine with intrusions on privacy from a person who insisted on the anonymity of a plain postcard with no signature. So apparently this man is a hypocrite as well as a coward.