Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for all your e-mails over the past few years. Energized by the spirit of tolerance and the promise of change, I have enjoyed signing petitions, opening my heart and my home to your events, and even sending in the occasional donation or two.
But I'm afraid you've lost me.
I have watched in horror as the sweeping mandate you so skillfully won has been squandered. You have failed at every turn to practice the politics necessary to change the course of this country, sacrificing health care reform, regulation of the financial system and greater freedom and equality for all Americans on the altar of a personal crusade for civility in a long-since broken institution. Your commitment to bipartisanship and compromise has resulted in neither. Your opponents have derailed every initiative and gutted every innovation, while you have continued to reach out, coaxing and pleading for a better day that simply will never come. Your opponents have won. Their obstructionism has prevailed. I understand that you expect me to blame them for their conduct. I do not. I blame you. Your desire to shift the glaciated culture of Washington elevates discourse over policy, and civility over action. That is not the change I voted for.
To imagine that we could not undo with 60 seats what George Bush accomplished with 53, is a profound statement about the utter ineffectiveness of your high road rhetoric. I have devoted my life to trying to make this country better, and I had pinned my hopes on our ability to do that. I no longer believe that either you or the democratic party will ever be up to that task.
My heart is broken, my wallet is closed. I am done.
E-mail me no more.
With deepest regrets,
David Feige.
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2 comments:
Well put. I agree completely, and you've crystallized something I have felt, but been unable to put into words.
I am in favor of increasing civility in politics; we'll all benefit. But the work has to get done, civilly or otherwise. And the work isn't getting done.
The replacement supreme justices and the obama trying to please by whaffling a centrist position does not help, in addition he attacks or ignores the "left" even when its not a far left position. Wrong fights.
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