Last Friday's Department of Justice document dump has received a lot of attention, and deservedly so.
Overlooked in all this talk of Gonzalez and Goodling, however, was this inadvertent document dump from the White House itself.
Apparently, it's a letter from an unnamed Democratic Congressperson to President George W. Bush. It was passed to me by an intrepid reporter who found it, torn and mangled, in a trash bin just off Pennsylvania Avenue...
To: the Honorable President of the United States, Mr. George W. Bush
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing you on this weekend while the nation awaits your presumed veto of H.R. 1591, the Fiscal Year 2007 Emergency Supplemental Funding bill.
Mr. President, we have a problem.
I know you have pledged to meet with the Congressional leadership and seek a meeting of the minds early next week after you veto this bill.
Mr. President, you have stated unequivocally that you want the funds to keep our troops in Iraq indefinitely and with no restrictions: no timelines, no benchmarks, no goals, no oversight, and no accountability. Not for you, not for the Iraqi government.
Mr. President, I hear you.
I know, as a recently elected Democrat in the Class of 2006, that your party and your political staff have their sights set on me. You need my vote.
Mr. President I could give you any number of reasons based on your conduct and administration of the war in Iraq that make me reticent to give you what you are asking for:
- Tora Bora
- WMD
- Yellowcake
- Aluminum Tubes
- Ahmed Chalabi
- Greeted as Liberators
- Jessica Lynch
- Jay Garner
- Mission Accomplished
- Bring 'em On
- Debaathification
- Go it alone
- Abu Ghraib
- Walter Reed
- Pat Tillman
- Valerie Plame
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Halliburton
- Fallujah
- Military Contractors
- Body Armor
- When they stand up, we'll stand down
- the "Surge"
- Multiple deployments
- 3,346 Americans killed
- 26,188 Americans wounded
- the 1,458 days the United States has occupied Iraq
You know the list by heart, I'm sure.
Mr. President, I have a much more fundamental problem with giving you my support. You see, Mr, President, there's one concern that trumps all these serious questions and difficulties I have with giving you my vote: it's a fundamental concern.
That fundamental concern is the mission I was given when I was voted to represent the citizens of my district in Washington DC. I work for them, Mr. President, not for you. Our Constitution says one or two things about that.
You see, Mr. President, if the voters of my district wanted to send a representative to Congress who would give the President the blank check you're asking for in Iraq: they would have voted for a Republican.
Sincerely
[Name Withheld.]