Dear Senator Obama,
I have been excited by the possibility of your becoming president of our United States since you announced your intentions. I have been impressed by your record of community activism, by your oratorical eloquence, and your raw ability to get people excited about the possibility that things could actually get better again in our country. The idea that progressivism could regain the voice it deserves, and that our government might once again become a bi-partisan system of compromise that means to benefit the greatest number of citizens in the greatest number of ways; what a concept. What fine aspirations to be turned into just more bureaucratic bullshit rhetoric at the blink of an eye.
I have been working, hoping and praying for a Democratic victory in November so that all us working, tax-paying citizens will again have the voice we are supposed to have, unequivocally and without restriction, meddling or fear mongering. You have represented yourself in part as the vehicle for that kind of change, and for the last several months you have been the vessel that we have poured our hopes and energy into.
But it looks like Danny Kaye may have had it right after all. Now that you’ve undermined our confidence by voting for the FISA version giving retroactive immunity for telecoms, we really don’t know if you’re the vessel with the pestle holding the pellet with the poison or the brew that is true. Your audacity seems no longer to be directed towards hope, but towards the American people.
How stupid do you think we are that we would believe, even from you, even for a minute, that the FISA version you voted for is a ‘compromise’?? The extremists running our government for the last 7 years have put corporations and oil and greed over individuals in almost every possible way, and you have been one of the most vocal opponents of that. That’s why so many reasonable Americans have supported you. But you know very well that giving in on retroactive immunity is no compromise, it is lilly-livered pandering, and you have some kind of damned audacity to think that even the most uninformed, disenfranchised American wouldn’t see that you’ve sold out completely on this one. You’re going along with trashing our right to privacy in one fell swoop, and for what? Tomorrow morning you’re going to tell us all over again how you’re fighting for the common man and woman? Please spare me.
Forget that this was the most golden of opportunities to really show us your mettle and the strength of your convictions. Forget that this is probably one of the two most important issues you could have taken a stand on to show us how presidential you might be (the other being the war in Iraq, of course). But you caved in just like your democratic colleagues who have been giving into all things Republican lately. Who’s bus are you trying to have donuts on, Mr. Obama? Really. You should change your name to Lieberman – it would be easier for us to remember. Even Hillary had the strength of character not to succumb today, and changed her vote away from one supporting repression.
Yeah sure, I’ll still vote for you in November. But I won’t be working for you, or flying your bumper stickers or talking you up anymore. Thanks for saving me all that trouble, I suppose.
Good luck in the November elections. If you can’t even win the confidence voters like me who have been desperate to believe in you, then luck is something you’re going to need lots of.