An Open Letter to Ted Kennedy

Dear Senator--

Recently you sent me a snail mail appeal asking me to donate to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Hopeful sucker that I am, I was prepared to send you money, and kept the return envelope in my briefcase to do just that, but then life got busy and I didn't do it right away. And that's a darn good thing.

For tonight it becomes clear that along with fighting the right-wing wacky ways of our dear president, and other loons like Rick Santorum, Tom Cockburn, etc., it seems we also need to fight Pat Leahy, Herb Kohl, Russ Feingold, and even sadly, Robert Byrd (who at least had the balls to say no to Iraq from the beginning, but looking for Dems in the Senate who did that is like what the Catholic Church's search for priests will be like once it bans gays from the priesthood).

Be an opposition party, dammit. There are only 45 of you, so you will lose, but at least you will stand for something. You will give people a reason to vote for something.

For when Orrin Hatch says, "I don't see how anybody can justify a vote against Judge Roberts, unless they want to nitpick certain areas that you can nitpick on anybody," we all need to scream. (Well, we should pretty much scream about everything Hatch says, but....)

Here are the nits the Dems should be picking:

• President Bush doesn't make good appointments. (See bad, bad Michael Brown.)
• The White House refuses to release all papers relevant to the nomination. Make them play fair.
• Roberts ruled in favor of the military commissions at Guatanamo, so he more or less thinks the president has unlimited power as long as there's a war, and the war on terror is forever.
• He ruled for the president after initially being interviews by the White House for a Supreme Court spot. If this isn't completely unethical, it's certainly scummy.
• At his last confirmation, he suggested his Catholicism might lead him to recuse himself on certain cases. A judge's job is to protect the Constitution, not the Papacy.
• The current pope is leading the church forward into the 15th century.
• OK, that bullet wasn't about Roberts.
• Roberts advised the Republicans on Bush v. Gore, which caused all these problems in the first place (but do note the Dems lacked a spine in those days, too).
• He appears to be anti-choice.
• He appears to want to lead women back into the 1910s. (This time I mean Roberts, not the pope.)
• He's all for property rights, especially when they can trample on the environment.
• He's all for big business rights, because if we don't take care of big business, who will keep paying minimal salaries and crippling workers?

Look, every dog's that dangerous doesn't drool before he sinks his teeth into your leg.

It's sadly funny that your website includes the phrase "stop the abuse." For it would be wonderful if you Democrats stopped abusing the folks who really want you to stand up and fight.

When you do that, come back and we can talk money.