Open Letter to a Wartime President

Dear Mr. “Wartime” President:

Congratulations on completing your fifth year of stewardship over the war in Iraq. Or as John McCain might put it, five years down, only 95 more to go. From reading your comments over the years, I know you believe History will judge your adventure kindly. And there’s a reasonable explanation for that. You’re delusional.

But rather than discuss your Legacy, or how survivors will judge you in the future, let’s discuss the impact of your time in office on present day America, shall we?

In a sense, your Presidency started in a preschool classroom September 1l, 2001, where you sat crouched behind a children’s book for a quarter of an hour as the Nation you professed to love was under attack by the Evildoers you profess to hate. You said you stayed “for the kids,” not wanting to upset them. There’s an explanation for that, too. You have never, ever, not even once admitted you’ve made a mistake, misjudgment, or bad call.

Despite that scared little boy expression on your face, you say it wasn’t fear that kept you there. But it’s not like you have a rep for bravery. When given an opportunity to get some combat use out of that expensive fighter-pilot training taxpayers paid for, you chose to run away from serving in Vietnam. You quit as a pilot, and then you disappeared from the National Guard unit your Daddy got you into. Years later, you would lament that you could not join the men and women you sent to fight and die overseas 30 years later on what you called a “romantic” quest. And yes, there’s even an explanation for that. You are shameless.

But that’s the past. Let’s talk about today, a point in time before “History” has a chance to reflect on your years as President. Mr. President, We the People are in a miserable mess.

You didn’t invent dirty campaigning, but you, and your gutter slime advisors, have raised it to an art form. No one trusts you any more. If space aliens landed on the White House lawn, or Russia put missiles in Cuba again, no one would believe your warnings.

This very day, the mid-West is taking a historic weather pounding and is flooding again, while the Southwest and Southeast continue to suffer from record drought. Oh, sure, can’t blame you for all Acts of God, but you’ve denied the Big Guy any help at all keeping the planet habitable. Your denial Global Climate change has battered this country and and lead to anti-American feeling around the world.

You have squandered a Trillion dollars in Iraq, billions of which just got misplaced along the way. You have killed almost 4,000 Americans there. You have sent them to war in inadequate equipment, and when the good stuff got there, it got chewed up with overuse.

You have brought untold misery on soldiers forced to serve multiple tours, and vets mistreated when they returned to the military hospitals you under funded. You have cut their benefits.

You have gutted the middle class, ignored the poor. Even some of the ultra rich, who you coddled with tax breaks, have suffered under your stewardship. A receding tide strands all boats.

You have mortgaged America’s future. You inherited an economy that ran without a deficit and built the greatest deficit in American history, a yoke around the neck of America’s children’s children’s children.

You’ve overseen jobs fleeing overseas. You’ve watched the dollar fall to historic lows. You have presided over the collapse of the housing market. You’ve failed to protect us form poisoned and defective imports. Because of you and your war and your tax cuts, there is no money to rebuild a collapsing infrastructure. Your own party’s convention will have to detour around a collapsed bridge outside of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

You fiddled while New Orleans drowned, and have done nothing to restore that city to its former greatness.

You have built an inept homeland security system. At airports we are protected from smuggled baby formula and those with more than three ounces of shampoo, but test after test have shown the system’s inefficiency in things that matter. You would have allowed the security of our ports to be outsourced.

You have chewed huge chunks out of American’s Rights to Privacy, and the Constitution is under assault as never before. You have politicized the Justice Department, caused many Americans to distrust that lynchpin of democracy, the honesty of our voting procedures.

By putting yourself above the law, by your dirty campaigns, with your mangling of simple English and by your shameless lies, you have done more to cause Americans to lose faith in their Government than even Nixon could ver dream of obtaining.

There is less than a year left of your misbegotten Presidency, a fact many citizens remember by wearing or carry reminders (1-20-09) of the day our long National Nightmare will officially end. Sadly, the damage will not conclude on that day. You have proven the adage that the evil men do lives long after them—especially when they get to make Supreme Court appointments.

Even more worrisome, there’s still time for it to get worse under you. Your ruined economy may yet collapse entirely. With the latest in a long line of skilled military men forced out of their jobs for daring to disagree with you, you’ve assured that War with Iran is still in play. The Taliban is back. Your fabled Surge is sagging in Iraq. The man who you couldn’t find, Osama bin Laden may yet row unmolested up the Hudson on an amphibious suitcase nukecanoe.

So we’re still watching you. And it won’t take History for most of us to know this is no Ship of State you captain, but a leaking Swiftboat of Fools.