Better late than never. I had to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows first.
Please note that the street address and fax for JetBlue weren’t the easiest things to find on their website. Feel free to make use of them.
Letter on the flip.
Mr. David Neeleman
JetBlue Airways
P.O. Box 17435
Salt Lake City, Utah 84117-7435
VIA FAX 801-365-2440
Dear Mr. Neeleman:
I am a frequent JetBlue flyer for both business and personal reasons.
I am also one of the more than 500,000 Americans, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who read the Daily Kos website on a regular basis. Indeed, I am proud to be Member #67 of the site. I am attending the Yearly Kos Convention in Chicago. I am flying one way on JetBlue.
I wonder which one of us is bothered more: that you are facilitating someone you believe is participating in a "hate site" convention, or that I am financially supporting your airline? I make no secret of my political beliefs, which are, by American standards, extremely liberal. As far as I know, one can hold these beliefs without hating the United States. I would even suggest that the 2006 election returns and recent political polls show that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is more popular now than in many years. I am reminded of an observation I read in the satirical MAD Magazine long ago: that a superpatriot loved his country, and hated all the people in it.
I realize that JetBlue may not have realized what it was getting into when it became the Official Airline of Yearly Kos Convention. As you found out, there is a significant (but dwindling) faction of the American right wing that now defines itself largely by the stridency of its opposition to the political views popular at Daily Kos. You may judge that propitiating these right-wingers is better business than being Yearly Kos’s official airline; it’s a free country, after all, and we ourselves have not been shy about using economic leverage against companies in business relationships with political groups or figures we abhor. I don’t think yours was a wise judgment: Daily Kos is already the most popular political blog in the world and is still growing while Fox News’ (so-called) and Bill O’Reilly’s audience is shrinking, but it’s your decision.
I do resent, however, your implication that we are some sort of lunatic fringe anti-American movement. You owe all of us collectively—and Marcos "Kos" Moulitsas Zúniga (who has repeatedly publicly recommended JetBlue for its excellent service) in particular—an apology.
Very truly yours,