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DEBRA PICKETT
Prove you're serious, Bush
about being a uniter
Dear Mr. President,
I know you don't care much for the blue states -- that's not a
smile that crosses your face when you say "Massachusetts," is it?
-- but I just wanted to remind you that you're the president here, too.
You ignored us in your first term and, since you managed to win a sec-
ond term without us, I suppose you can just keep on doing that. Just
think: You never have to go to Pennsylvania again. And you certainly
don't need to come to Illinois.
With a Republican House and
Senate and "chief obstructionist"
Tom Daschle out of the way, you
can do what you want. You might
even get to pack the Supreme Court.
But I was wondering if you
might be willing to do things dif-
ferently. I was wondering if the
idea of being the president of
all of us might hold some appeal. Re-
member that whole "I'm-a-uniter-
not-a-divider" thing?
At your press conference on
Thursday, you pointed to the No
Child Left Behind legislation as an
example of how, in your first term,
you tried to work with Democrats on
shared priorities. The thing is, Mr.
President, here in the blue states,
lots of children have been left be-
hind. You set rigid and aggressive
targets for test results without giving
school systems -- especially the ur-
ban districts that have the most
work to do -- the funding or support
they need to meet those goals. You
only went halfway. And the Demo-
crats who supported that first step
are really bitter about the way
you've studiously avoiding taking
the second step. They say you went
back on your word. You say you
never made any promises. Nobody's
happy, including the kids who were
supposed to benefit from all this.
So I'm confused about why that
would be your model for a healthy
bipartisan culture.
Check your mailbox
We don't have a lot in common,
you and I. But I think there's one
thing. We probably both get a fair
amount of hate mail. You have a
whole staff to deal with yours. I
have to read mine.
The angry letters I get call me
liberal, stupid and spoiled. Except
for the liberal part, I'm guessing
yours aren't much different. I've
never been accused of, say, rushing
the nation to war under a false pre-
tense and then making a mess of
the rushed war because I failed to
plan for it. But people do mock
some of my facial expressions.
Anyway, the thing I wanted to
tell you about my mail, and espe-
cially the angry mail, is that I find
it really helpful. I mean, sure, I
tend to skip over the letters that
have lots of profanity and the ones
that are written in that super-
shaky crazy-person handwriting.
And, yes, I do linger over those
kind notes that tell me I got some-
thing exactly right. But it's reading
the hate mail, the letters from peo-
ple whose world view is completely
opposite from mine, that is most
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helpful to me in figuring out how to
say things better, how to think
about things more carefully and
how to grow into a job that I am, I
know, incredibly lucky to have.
I know there's a whole team of
people whose job it is to make sure
you never hear an angry word from
a protester. But you must know
they're out here. You saw those
people waiting in line on Tuesday,
didn't you? Standing four hours in
a chilling rain -- they weren't all
there to express their deep admira-
tion for you.
You don't think you've made
mistakes, but millions of people
do. Aren't you even the slightest
bit curious about them?
Come to Illinois
You said, at Thursday's press
conference, that you'd earned
some political capital in the cam-
paign and now you intend to spend
it. That is, of course, your right.
But you also asked for the sup-
port of the 55 million people who
voted against you on Tuesday. If
you meant that, there's one thing
you could do to get started. You
could come talk to us.
See, we weren't allowed into
your campaign events. We gener-
ally can't even get near you. But
you could come to us. You could
come visit a blue state.
You don't have anything to lose
now. So you could let us ask you
questions, without all the debate
rules that made such a farce of the
idea of a "town meeting."
Maybe nothing would change
and we'd continue to live in our
"two Americas."
But maybe something would
change.
Because the thing that's different
about us, Mr. President, the thing
that really divides the blue folks
from the red folks, is more than just
the way we feel about issues. It's the
way we think a leader should be.
We want someone to govern
from the bottom up, to listen to
the concerns of people and then
address them. The idea of a top-
down democracy -- one where you
decide what our priorities must be
-- really scares us.
You could alleviate some of that
fear. You could show us that you're
interested in us.
Because, Mr. President, there's
one thing your advisers haven't
told you about us pointy-headed,
blue-state liberal types: We're the
ones who write the history books.
Just thought I would mention it,
An Illinois voter
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