Letter To Republican Members Of Congress

Thursday
March 16, 2006


To all Republican members of the House and the Senate:

We gave you both houses of congress and the presidency. We gave you an opportunity and a mandate to do something great and, thus far, you have let us down. Instead of greatness we got backroom political compromise and self-interested deal making with no solutions to important national problems. Your shortsighted business-as-usual pork barrel greed was a monumental disappointment to millions of us who expected far more from you. Moreover, you spent the people’s money as though you were bent on doing a “best-ever” impression of good-old-boy Democrats.

Your wimpy, faint-hearted behavior in the face of outrageously disgraceful and dishonest Democratic attacks on our president—your party leader and the man who helped a lot of you get elected—has been disgraceful. Overall, you have done such a completely mediocre job you now stand a chance of losing control of the House in a few months. Unless you make a truly fast and miraculous recovery, history will forget you within weeks after your eventual departure. Newt Gingrich where are you?

The “Ports Deal.”

Wow, you really showed your mettle there, didn’t you? You didn’t take a single nanosecond to find out what the deal was all about before you joined some Democrats to condemn the president and make him look like a damn fool. President George W. Bush! You remember him don’t you? The one who we can absolutely trust to do everything possible to protect us—the man whose name is synonymous with national security. You surely remember because most of you spent the last five years telling us how safe we were in his hands. Yet suddenly, with no rational reason, you told us that he was about to put us all in great jeopardy by turning over control of some major U.S. ports to an Arab nation! Good God! Had the man lost his mind? Had Muslim radicals somehow nabbed him and substituted one of their own? Otherwise, how did this steadfast leader for whom the words national security had become his daily mantra suddenly and inexplicably make such a monumental error in judgment? Well, of course you never explained that sticky little discrepancy to us. You never explained much of anything because as we learned later, you didn’t know anything.

You opportunistic grandstanders knew as much about the deal as we the public did, which was zip! As a sign of your collective wisdom, some of you actually cited the fact that about 70% of the public opposed the ports deal—implying that the public had a better handle on the deal than the president and his cabinet, and all the appropriately responsible departments of government did. “Collective wisdom?” We the public knew only what self-promoting politicians like you and your Democrat friends on the other side of the isle told us, which was nothing credible! So there you (and the Democrats) were, essentially using us (the general public) as experts on port security to make your case to us in order to convince us that the Port Security Deal was a bad deal for us! How damn dumb can you get? Yes, that was a rhetorical question.

It’s clear that facts don’t matter to you. For you, it is all about perception. All that mattered was that it smelled like a political hot potato and none of you wanted to touch it. Even if it was good for the country (as the president and many others said it was), it was too much work for you terribly overworked public servants to explain it to your constituents. Who cared if the president knew more about it than all of you self-important blowhards combined? Who cared if the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and many more well informed, highly competent government experts supported the president and endorsed the deal? Just never mind all of that mundane stuff. Ignore it all because you thought the politically advantageous thing to do was to disparage the president’s judgment, stop the deal cold, and to declare the president and his administration incompetent. It looked like the Democrats had taken control of your minds. Sadly, they had not. It is an election year and you were running scared. To Hell with what’s right and good for the country and to Hell with the president.

That is what you did regardless of your pathetic attempts to spin your way out of it. That is exactly what you did and it contributed to driving the president’s poll numbers down. Of course, your (members of congress) numbers went even lower than his but while you all deserve your low numbers, on the facts, he did not. Speaking of that: Due to your less than mediocre performance over the past years and your most recent disgraceful behavior, unless you turn things around pretty damn fast, you will soon be on your knees kissing the rings of the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and the rest of that gang of political misfits. Talk about going to Hell for your sins!

Here are a few things to consider:

Stand up for the president when his (and your) Democrat opponents, including the media, unfairly accuse him of everything from lying to being the biggest terrorist in the world. Don’t let a single false accusation go unanswered. You should have done this from day one instead of saying things like, “Well, I don’t always agree with my good friends on the other side of the isle.” Your good friends on the other side of the isle? Your “good friends” viciously savage your president—the leader of your party—on a daily basis and that or something just as limp is all you have to say? Every single time you hear one of them accuse the president of “misleading us into war” or “lying to us about the WMD” or countless other bogus accusations, call them on it and don’t let go until they either prove the accusations or apologize for falsely accusing the president.

When they say that his “incompetence” in the Iraq War has cost American lives:

• Remind them that beginning with WWI, Democrat presidents have led us into every major war—that we have spent almost 16 years in those wars compared to a little over 3 years in “Republican wars.”
• Point out that we have suffered almost 2 million military casualties in “Democrat wars” compared to about 19 thousand in “Republican wars.”
• Finally, remind them that even though we have lost over two thousand troops in Iraq, we often lost that many in less than an hour in any one of at least four “Democrat wars.”

When they try to shame the president for civilian casualties in Iraq:

• Remind them that the policy of our current military forces, under orders from President George W. Bush, is to minimize civilian casualties and not to intentionally target them.
• Remind them that other presidents were not so careful to protect civilians — that massive saturation bombing of civilian populations was an intentional ongoing practice ordered by Democratic presidents.
• Remind them that under direct orders of Democratic presidents we killed more Japanese civilians during WWII than Japanese military personnel—millions.
• Remind them that military blunders are common in war and that the biggest military blunders in our history were made under Democratic presidents.
• While you’re at it, remind them that every time someone made a blunder or mistake or just didn’t foresee whatever, the Republicans didn’t demand the resignation of the cabinet or the impeachment of the president because they understood that mistakes are as intrinsic to war as death itself.

If you think these are unfair arguments then ask yourselves if the borderline treasonous behavior of some of your “good friends” on the other side of the isle is fair. I tell you this: The information presented above is accurate. Yet during those major wars I do not recall the same kind of incessant disgraceful behavior to discredit the Commander In Chief and to undermine the war effort as we now experience every day from your Democrat "friends" on the other side of the isle. The current Democratic Party and the left-biased media have gone far beyond constructive opposition. They now freely and with no meaningful opposition from Republicans seek daily to undermine the national security of the United States. It is apparent that their quest to regain political power is their first priority and America be damned. So challenge the bums and do it now!

What’s that? That’s not the way it’s done in Washington? You don’t want to ruffle the feathers of your good friends? Okay, keep doing it your way and you’ll soon be on the highway out of D.C. I understand: Some people never get it.

Corruption: Wow, a couple of you just couldn't control your corrupt natures once you were in power. We gave you both houses of congress and the White House and you thought you hit the lottery and that you were above the law. I can’t, adequately, tell you how much you disappointed so many of us. Clean it up fast and do a thorough job.

President George W. Bush is a leader. You all must know that. He actually wants to do the people’s business. He wants to take on important issues and make our country and the world a better place while he is president. I believe one of the reasons he always worked so hard to help you get elected is that he wanted you to help him get some important things done. Yet, while he draws fire from his detractors (as happens to all real leaders) and endures the attacks with courage and determination, you people too often behave like fair-weather friends, defending him when it is politically convenient and fleeing in haste when it is not.

Yes, you did get some things done and you deserve credit for what you accomplished. But when you fail to robustly and sincerely address big problems like Social Security, you cheat us because you know that it needs fixing. And why must we wait for tax reform? Of course, there are many other important issues as well. A legitimate, robust energy bill would have been nice but it didn’t happen. Instead, along with your Democrat "friends" you passed a so-so-what-did-you-really-expect bill. As usual, you politicians got in the way. Health care needs serious attention too and your pork barrel spending has been disgraceful. I voted Republican and I got Democrat! Or is there no distinction any more?

We gave you the power; now use it for the good of this great nation. In case it slipped your minds, that was the idea, you know. Go back to the history books and revisit the wisdom of our founding fathers. Come the think of it, just read George Washington’s farewell address and pay special attention to the cautionary words he delivered to his fellow founders—his words about the dangers inherent in political partisanship and political parties. It was an exceptionally prophetic admonition.

Finally, if you really do intend to do something of value, you had better do it fast because, trust me, time is running out.

Sincerely,

R. D. McKinley

Note: While this letter was written on March 16, 2006 and was not originally written for this blog, due to urging from others, I posted it here.

Postscript: As prophesied here, in the next Congressional election Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress. The voters threw them out.

Media Bias: MSNBC Clinton Interview

(An email to MSNBC)

If I assume that your political reporting and commentary is honest and unbiased, then I must conclude that your so-called journalists are remarkably ignorant. I just tuned in for a few minutes and caught your coverage of Bill Clinton's latest dishonest propagandizing. The remarkable (though predictable) thing is that, apparently, none of your people knew that he delivered four or five big lies in a matter of a couple of minutes. Don't you have a journalist or commentator with enough political knowledge and savvy to interview someone as slick as Bill Clinton? Why is it that Republicans always get the hard questions from you guys and when you interview Democrats it’s like you’re reading a script written by the Democratic National Committee or MoveOn.org? In this particular Clinton interview, you repeatedly commented on his lies as though what he had said was true. This of course led ignorant viewers to believe his lies. And you do this sort of thing every day!

Let me help you out a little: Among other things, he said that his administration had created a program that had cut poverty significantly and that the Bush administration got rid of the program. Can you tell me just exactly what program that might be? I defy you to do so because there is no such program. You see, it's simple: Bill Clinton made the whole thing up. He lied. Of course that should surprise no one because he has always had a really big problem with the truth, but that's another story. My question to you all is why you don't know that he lied? It is your job to know these things. Isn't it?

But that's not all: If you revisit his words and do your homework, you will find that he lied a number of times while accusing President Bush of doing things he has not done. You should not only know this, you should report it vigorously. Don't you agree that it is big news when a former president of the United States blatantly lies about important national issues and, additionally, falsely accuses a sitting president of committing reprehensible acts? Are these not things that we the people should know about? Bill Clinton’s remarks were part of the anti-Bush propaganda that has been ongoing for years.

The difference, and what is news, is that the lies and the false accusations leveled against a sitting president, did not come from the likes of Howard Dean, of whom, sadly, we now expect such things. It came from a former president who, like Jimmy Carter, has breached an unwritten, though formerly respected rule that living former presidents do not criticize the policies of sitting presidents regarding issues of national security. Yet Mr. Clinton also used the occasion to denigrate our current president with other outright lies. He used Katrina (perhaps our worst ever natural disaster) to imply that the President does not care about the poor among us and that his (the President’s) uncaring indifference caused much suffering among those unfortunate people. All in all, Mr. Clinton’s performance was one of the most despicable displays of low-class political deceit and opportunism I have ever witnessed. And you people missed it all—apparently because you just don’t know what’s going on! Or for some other reason.

Here are some things to check out: Contrary to Mr. Clinton's claims, measured against the Clinton administration, under President Bush anti-poverty program spending has increased and poverty levels have decreased; minority home ownership is higher than ever before in our history; unemployment is lower than the average unemployment rates during the eight Clinton years (now at 4.9%); President Bush increased education spending significantly over the Clinton years, and test scores of minority children are at all-time high levels. And should I mention that President Bush has assembled the most racially/ethnically diverse administration in our country’s history?

There is much more, though my point here is that Mr. Clinton and so many others would rather lie to us than admit the truth. In fact, dishonest spin was and continues to be standard procedure for Mr. Clinton, Democrats in general, and biased, agenda-driven media outlets like MSNBC. As long as you fail to report the truth you are as guilty as the political liars you support. Furthermore, you abuse your priviledged use of public airwaves. In so doing, you weaken our country just as surely and as effectively as any enemy could.

I am right about this yet it is reprehensible that you and other media outlets remain guarded and protected from accountability. You simply don’t respond to these honest and accurate charges and questions. What could you say if you did? Would you plead ignorance? If not; then what? The only rational alternative explanation I can think of is that you know when the politicians lie to you but you fail to confront them in order to protect them. Given your record, that is the most plausible explanation. Of course you won't admit to this. In fact, you won’t answer this email. You will send me an automatic response, which will say that you appreciate my feedback but that you cannot answer my email because you get too many of them and it would be too time consuming, etc. Worse, you won’t address the issues I raise at all—either by email or on the air, which you certainly could and should do. That’s too bad, though it is a sign of our times.

My conclusion: You are not professional journalists and news reporters. You are propagandists for the Democrats, political shills, and hacks of the worst kind. Your network should, by all reasonable ethical standards, be banned from the use of public airwaves. You do these things as a matter of policy and practice. You are a disgrace to the ethical principles on which our democracy depends for its core strengths and values. Daily, you weaken our nation with your dishonest propaganda. You are enemies of democracy.

© Robert D. McKinley
All rights reserved.