November 4, 2007
An Open Letter to President Bush
Mr. President,
After he left office, Jimmy Carter went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore championed the cause of global warming and recently accepted a Nobel Prize, also. Even your father and Bill Clinton teamed up to raise awareness and aide for the survivors of Katrina and the Asian tsunami. Yes, many an elected official has used the years after their term in office to further impact society, and in so doing add to the legacy that will define them in the history books that are yet to be written.
What do you intend to do after you vacate the White House? I have an idea. I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the lives of the people who died in your war.
I don’t have a husband or a son or a brother - a sister, a daughter or a friend in your war - I am simply one of the masses. I am the “we”, in We the People. I am the “we” that believed in a government by, for and of “the people“. I am the “we” that got duped. “WE” did not vote on this war. “WE” did not authorize torture, subterfuge and the international smearing of our good name for the sake of oil. “WE” are not as afraid of the boogie man that you espouse as we are of our own government forsaking us and offering up our youth, our tax money and our futures on the greatest scavenger hunt in the history of time. You built an altar to war on the towers of the World Trade Center and sacrificed 3849 American lives, to date. I am only asking that you get to know the heroes whose bodies burned on your funeral pyre.
I will spend from now until the end of your presidency compiling and writing a short biography of each soldiers life - if you will promise to read them all. Not much, just a page or two - barely enough to do their lives justice.
If you will read the story of one soldier a day, you, sir, will be reading for the next ten and a half years. Can you sacrifice an hour or less a day for the next ten and a half years for the patriots who sacrificed their lives for your war?
Sadly, I would bet my last dollar (and because of the economy, it’s probably right here in my wallet) that you will not commit to this. Sadder still, I doubt that you will even acknowledge or respond to my request. I fervently hope that the entire country - nay, the world, hears your silence.
Kathleen Padden
Birmingham, MI
An Open Letter to President Bush
Mr. President,
After he left office, Jimmy Carter went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore championed the cause of global warming and recently accepted a Nobel Prize, also. Even your father and Bill Clinton teamed up to raise awareness and aide for the survivors of Katrina and the Asian tsunami. Yes, many an elected official has used the years after their term in office to further impact society, and in so doing add to the legacy that will define them in the history books that are yet to be written.
What do you intend to do after you vacate the White House? I have an idea. I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the lives of the people who died in your war.
I don’t have a husband or a son or a brother - a sister, a daughter or a friend in your war - I am simply one of the masses. I am the “we”, in We the People. I am the “we” that believed in a government by, for and of “the people“. I am the “we” that got duped. “WE” did not vote on this war. “WE” did not authorize torture, subterfuge and the international smearing of our good name for the sake of oil. “WE” are not as afraid of the boogie man that you espouse as we are of our own government forsaking us and offering up our youth, our tax money and our futures on the greatest scavenger hunt in the history of time. You built an altar to war on the towers of the World Trade Center and sacrificed 3849 American lives, to date. I am only asking that you get to know the heroes whose bodies burned on your funeral pyre.
I will spend from now until the end of your presidency compiling and writing a short biography of each soldiers life - if you will promise to read them all. Not much, just a page or two - barely enough to do their lives justice.
If you will read the story of one soldier a day, you, sir, will be reading for the next ten and a half years. Can you sacrifice an hour or less a day for the next ten and a half years for the patriots who sacrificed their lives for your war?
Sadly, I would bet my last dollar (and because of the economy, it’s probably right here in my wallet) that you will not commit to this. Sadder still, I doubt that you will even acknowledge or respond to my request. I fervently hope that the entire country - nay, the world, hears your silence.
Kathleen Padden
Birmingham, MI
NUMBER OF DAYS WITH NO RESPONSE FROM OUR PRESIDENT
185 (4/28/08)
