Letter to the Editor - Southern Style

From the Times Daily in Florence, Al.

King George

To the editor:

As a loyal patriot and veteran of the armed forces, it saddens and depresses me to see Americans confuse allegiance to a man with allegiance to our country.

George Bush is not America. George Bush is not the Constitution. He isn't our freedom, and he isn't our master. He's just a politician, folks. His only talent is gaining high public office.

As long as this poltroon is in charge, we're on our own with the duct tape and plastic sheets.

Take this controversy over the National Security Administration's warrantless spying. The NSA does not need a warrant to listen in on people outside the United States, but this program has targeted thousands of private U.S. citizens calling, or receiving calls from, someone abroad -- an act which, until now, required a warrant.

These are facts. The White House does not deny them.

Instead, they claim a new authority greater than the Constitution, Congress, or the courts. They claim the powers of a monarch: without appeal, or the checks and balances every eighth-grader learns are at the heart of America's republican democracy.

It would have been easy to get a warrant. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides for a secret court in Washington, and that court has refused only five requests for warrants in three decades of operation.

Basically, it's a rubber stamp and a constitutional fig leaf.

But a king does not need to bother with rubber stamps or fig leafs. He can send thousands of FBI agents to pursue dead-end leads from illegal wiretaps without worrying about constitutions or rights.

Of course, I'm just a 'liberal.' I 'hate America.' I am 'with the terrorists.' I 'want them to win.' I 'do not support our troops.'

These are yet more lies, repeated constantly in hopes that repetition will make them true, by people who cannot see the plain truth before their eyes: you go to war with the president you have, and King George is dangerously incompetent.

Matt O*****

Florence