Tuesday, May 11, 2010

February 10, 2010 Open Letter to Mitch McConnell

(Not going to pretend you are dear to me any more) Senator McConnell:

I’m sure you know that President Obama is going to protect us, no matter how difficult you and your party make that job for him. Still, I want you to know I am disgusted that you are playing with my safety and then insinuating that he isn’t concerned with protecting me.

President Obama nominated an assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research (Philip Goldberg), undersecretary of defense for personnel readiness (Clifford Stanley), undersecretary of homeland security for intelligence (Caryn Wagner), and representative to a conference on disarmament (Laura Kennedy) – months ago. Senator Shelby has blocked these (and many other) nominees until he gets the contracts he wants for his state. Last I heard, you had a full staff yet you are unable to present even a decent façade of keeping up with your responsibilities. Do you see how petty and dishonest you look when you imply that President Obama is not meeting your standards while your party plays games that leave him hanging with huge holes in his staff?

To make things even worse, I hear the following statements from you:

"I wish to indicate that Senator Shelby has been in discussions with the administration over an issue with which I am not terribly familiar, and I believe that is the genesis of his objection.”

"He is not able to be here at the moment to state his position," McConnell said.

"Maybe in discussions with him, we can make some progress on these, sooner rather than later, but for the moment I am constrained to object on his behalf."

You claimed that you were uninformed regarding Senator Shelby’s blocking of nominees, an issue that has been a major problem for months now? Covered in newspapers, magazines, and blogs, and on every major news channel? Seriously? This is not leadership, Senator McConnell. This is inept, it is lazy, and it is more of the same partisan ugliness that you try to project onto the Democrats.

This is unacceptable.

Your salary is sufficient to cover the cost of a cell phone and I should think you have access to contact information for Senator Shelby. If you lack either of those, I think that is another sign of incompetence. If you have a phone and contact information, you were rude to try and delay this country’s business another day and you were careless with my safety which, again, is unacceptable.

And, finally, I hope your leadership position demands that you counsel Senator Shelby and his spokesperson on the inaccuracy of the following statement:

"If this administration were as worried about hunting down terrorists as it is about the confirmation of low-level political nominations," he said last week,

"America would be a safer place."

The hypocrisy is disgusting.

Until tomorrow,

Me

p.s. Does this mean you have a sense of humor after all?
Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, gloated yesterday, “Where’s Al Gore now?” If so, you haven't shown that side of your personality often enough, or a consistent grasp of facts to make me feel comfortable that this was a joke. Want to ease my mind?

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