dear mr. president,
late last week, as rumors swirled of impending indictments against one or more of your administration's senior officials, we heard sudden word that you would be making a 'major speech on terrorism'. you appeared at the national endowment for democracy, the patriotic backdrop du jour, and preceded to remind us that, 'we're responding to a global campaign of fear with a global campaign of freedom.' almost simultaneously an alert went out across the newswaves -- imminent terrorist threat against the subways of new york. riders were warned to show caution. police were present both throughout the transit system and, in pictures, throughout the nation's newspapers.
it's become a familiar pattern. keith olbermann noted that there have been at least 13 occassions since september 11, 2001 when timely terrorist alerts have either masked bad news for your administration, or reinforced a sense of alarm your government was encouraging us to feel already. and today, in a
news story with much smaller headlines, the word went out that there had been a mistake and the there was no real threat to new york after all. the information had been unreliable. or something.
but that kind of sums it up, doesn't it? the information was unreliable. a few weeks ago, in another underreported story, the GAO concluded that your administration had broken the law by creating and distributing fake news segments and paying conservative commentators to shill for administration policies. supposedly neutral channels were infiltrated and illegally turned to the purposes of your administration. there, again, the information was unreliable.
and who can forget the staged townhalls you held both during the election and during your ill-fated push to abolish social security? would anybody inside or outside your administration bill the information distributed there as reliable?
now we have the nominations of john roberts and harriet miers to the supreme court. both are notable for their lack of note up to this point. the only paper trail harriet miers has is as your counsel, but i'm sure anything interesting or telling there is being held steadfastly under the lock and key of executive privilege. when miers appears before the senate hearings, congress and the american people will know virtually nothing about what she thinks about the issues of the day. it strikes me that the information is just not very reliable.
now i'm not a tinfoil-hat type, but where there's smoke there's usually fire. mr. president, your adminstration has mastered the art of the appearance. substance doesn't matter, all that matters is that you can get the network anchors discussing your talking points. if the media is reminding everybody that "my god, my god, we're all going to die", then there probably won't be enough time to ask too many details about harriet miers or armstrong williams or exactly how effective no child left behind has turned out to be. i have always believed that the devil corrupts the world by using the truth to tell a lie. well sir, here he is.
your administration has very successfully used abortion as a smokescreen to distract us from the mundane details of your bad governance. it's clear to me that you're playing the same game with the media, spinning things just enough that duck looks like goose long enough for another white woman to go missing.
now i care about missing white women as much as the next guy, but i care about my democracy more. and i just wanted to say to you and your administration -- in the words of jon stewart, "stop hurting america." stop corrupting my democracy. stop raping the institutions that tie my community together. stop giving away chunks of my heritage to your rich and powerful buddies. stop doing all of this while making believe that you're really helping me. that your 'clean skies' initiatives are anything more than an attack on air standards, or that your bankruptcy bill was fair to anybody other than the credit card companies. this country is strong, but it's not invincible, and i would appreciate it if i could pass the freedoms you like talking so much about on to my children.
because mr. president, you were right about one thing. our freedoms are indeed under attack, but not from the quarters you so repeatedly and energetically point to. the real threat comes from the creeping corruption of our democratic institutions that has been the hallmark of your administration. to that i am certainly ready to respond with a 'campaign of freedom'.
- hillbilly