That blindfolded lady
Dear President Obama,
Congratulations on the gig. I always thought you'd get it, even when Hillary people were on my neck, biting hard. Frankly, I was skewing that way myself for a while, because I didn't think you had the experience. Still, I knew you had the attitude and here in America, we like our presidents to have some street smarts. Or some kind of smarts, which makes the past eight years a little puzzling.
I know you're very busy now, undoing all that godawful stuff the Former Occupant and his Merry Band of Thugs engineered, but I need to make a confession. You see, I'm responsible for the whole laundry list. Guantanamo, torture, secret trials, wiretapping, unprovoked acts of war, cherry-picked intelligence, lying to the American people, Abu Graib.
Yeah. That was me, Writer to the Stars.
For quite a while, I didn't think I was on the wrong side. I voted against the Former Occupant, I marched, I wrote letters, I signed petitions, and basically checked out of the whole culture and became a stealth-writer, unwilling to support a rogue regime. I thought I was doing enough, but I knew better. I'm a DC kid, daughter of a government work-a-daddy, a work-a-daddy who did his Ph.D work on the Geneva Conventions. So I can't say I couldn't spot a putsch from the get-go. I knew there had been a coup d'etat, even though there wasn't much about it in The Dallas Morning News.
I'm also a survivor of Watergate, so I remember those hearings. I still recall Barbara Jordon saying, “Why don’t we just take this 17th century document and put it into a 20th century shredder?” I'm a little surprised the Former Occupant didn't do that when he had the chance. Maybe someone ought to see if the Constitution's still around. (Could you check on that? Maybe send Rahm or someone? Thanksabunch.)
Even with all that history and me sticking my oar in now and again, the Former Occupant & Co. kept on keeping on, while our country crumbled like a huge stale cookie. Then too, we voted for him once, then turned around and voted for him again. Sure the elections were sketchy, and lots of people were mad about all the shenanigans, but if our country had been in good shape, these bozos wouldn't have lasted five hot minutes. But I didn't do enough, the newspapers didn't do enough, and congress didn't do enough. There were a lot of people writing, screaming, demonstrating, and hollering, but not enough of them.
And then, we got our act together. The voters, that is.
Last time I looked, America was a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. Without us, creeps like the Former Occupant can't get a toe-hold. And this is the real point of my letter, Mr. President. We need to investigate what happened, we need to have trials, and we need to send some bad guys to jail.
Otherwise, we'll always be scared because we'll know it could happen again. I know I'll be scared. This time we pulled it out but we might not be able to again. While my thoughts are often dark ones, that's a thought too black to bear. Then there's my guilt. I'm walking around, still feeling slightly terrible because evil things were done in the name of America. And there's no getting around it, America is me. It says so on a bunch of very old documents: We the people. And I'm the people.
Give it some thought and get back to me.
Thanks a lot,
Writer to the Stars
Congratulations on the gig. I always thought you'd get it, even when Hillary people were on my neck, biting hard. Frankly, I was skewing that way myself for a while, because I didn't think you had the experience. Still, I knew you had the attitude and here in America, we like our presidents to have some street smarts. Or some kind of smarts, which makes the past eight years a little puzzling.
I know you're very busy now, undoing all that godawful stuff the Former Occupant and his Merry Band of Thugs engineered, but I need to make a confession. You see, I'm responsible for the whole laundry list. Guantanamo, torture, secret trials, wiretapping, unprovoked acts of war, cherry-picked intelligence, lying to the American people, Abu Graib.
Yeah. That was me, Writer to the Stars.
For quite a while, I didn't think I was on the wrong side. I voted against the Former Occupant, I marched, I wrote letters, I signed petitions, and basically checked out of the whole culture and became a stealth-writer, unwilling to support a rogue regime. I thought I was doing enough, but I knew better. I'm a DC kid, daughter of a government work-a-daddy, a work-a-daddy who did his Ph.D work on the Geneva Conventions. So I can't say I couldn't spot a putsch from the get-go. I knew there had been a coup d'etat, even though there wasn't much about it in The Dallas Morning News.
I'm also a survivor of Watergate, so I remember those hearings. I still recall Barbara Jordon saying, “Why don’t we just take this 17th century document and put it into a 20th century shredder?” I'm a little surprised the Former Occupant didn't do that when he had the chance. Maybe someone ought to see if the Constitution's still around. (Could you check on that? Maybe send Rahm or someone? Thanksabunch.)
Even with all that history and me sticking my oar in now and again, the Former Occupant & Co. kept on keeping on, while our country crumbled like a huge stale cookie. Then too, we voted for him once, then turned around and voted for him again. Sure the elections were sketchy, and lots of people were mad about all the shenanigans, but if our country had been in good shape, these bozos wouldn't have lasted five hot minutes. But I didn't do enough, the newspapers didn't do enough, and congress didn't do enough. There were a lot of people writing, screaming, demonstrating, and hollering, but not enough of them.
And then, we got our act together. The voters, that is.
Last time I looked, America was a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. Without us, creeps like the Former Occupant can't get a toe-hold. And this is the real point of my letter, Mr. President. We need to investigate what happened, we need to have trials, and we need to send some bad guys to jail.
Otherwise, we'll always be scared because we'll know it could happen again. I know I'll be scared. This time we pulled it out but we might not be able to again. While my thoughts are often dark ones, that's a thought too black to bear. Then there's my guilt. I'm walking around, still feeling slightly terrible because evil things were done in the name of America. And there's no getting around it, America is me. It says so on a bunch of very old documents: We the people. And I'm the people.
Give it some thought and get back to me.
Thanks a lot,
Writer to the Stars
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