U. S. Capitol. Photo by Callen Harty.
Mitch,
I’m sorry, but I can’t start my letter with “Dear” because you are not, and I don’t respect you enough to address you by the title of Senator (and believe me, I deliberated that longer than most bills get deliberated in the Senate these days). There are other words I could use but I respect reptiles enough not to do so.
Now that we have that out of the way: I am writing to call you out for what I recently read in the newspaper. The report was that you intend to block any attempt to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Donald Trump, Russia, the firing of FBI Director James Comey, or, I’m guessing, anything else that might make your party look bad. Of course you can’t block the worst elements of your party from speaking or being themselves so they’ll look bad despite your best efforts. But hey, as the Majority Leader you have to try, right? Then again, you are one of the worst elements of your party, so there’s that.
But back to the issue at hand: The newspaper report was not really all that surprising. You’re going to block something, they said. Ooh, shock, I thought. You block more than a starting lineman on a professional football team. You spent the better part of eight years blocking anything (everything) that President Obama tried to do. You remember him, don’t you? Our first African-American President? African-American? You obstructed everything he attempted. Coincidence? I think not. You most recently spent nearly a year blocking hearings on a qualified Supreme Court nominee, longer than any nominee in history had to languish. And then, as soon as your side got into power you changed the rules to rush through the Trump nominee. Blocking things is what you do best. Somehow you are still blocking the devil from taking you home.
In politics blocking is a negative approach rather than a proactive, positive one. It stops things instead of moving them forward. It prevents rather than creates. It also gives you that smug old white guy look of someone who loves power for the sake of power.
Please get over your smugness.
Please know that you will fail.
Please know the truth will prevail.
In the last dozen years or so our government has passed bill after bill chipping away at our rights. Each time you and your flag-waving Jesus-praising small government-loving hypocrites defended things like spying on American citizens with arguments telling us that if we have done nothing wrong then we should have no fears about such things. While I don’t have anything to hide I disagree with the logic of your argument. Still, it is your argument. So I would counter that if Donald Trump has done nothing wrong, if he has nothing to hide, then neither he nor his party should have anything to fear from an independent investigation. If he is truly innocent then an independent investigation will clear him of any wrongdoing and allow you and your fellow Republicans the freedom to lash out at Democrats for pursuing the Russian story as heartily as the Republicans pursued Benghazi or Bill Clinton’s misdeeds.
One would think that as Kentucky’s longest-serving Senator and a long-time Washington insider (or denizen of the swamp, as some might say) you might remember the Watergate era. The more that the Nixon administration tried to hide the facts the deeper was the hole that they dug. But that’s okay. Ignore history the way you ignore the Constitution. Do your best to block any investigations from happening. Sooner or later, you will fail. Sooner or later, the truth will prevail. And sooner or later the devil will come to visit and carry you home.
A Single Bluebird 