Reply #5: My letter to (my) Sen. Durbin re: Bob Gates:

[reichstag911]

Feel free to appropriate for correspondence with your congresscritters:

Dear Sen. Durbin:

The subject of this correspondence could have just as easily been categorized as a Crime/Drugs matter, but since it regards Mr. Bush's nominee for Secretary of Defense, I opted for Defense/Military.

Before Mr. Gates is allowed to sail through the confirmation process simply because he's not as personally abrasive as Donald Rumsfeld, I hope Democrats will do a thorough investigation of his background.

Specifically, I refer to two momentous matters of national security in which he has been implicated. First is the widely hypothesized and discussed "October Surprise" of 1980 which apparently ensured victory for Ronald Reagan. A primer on that story can be seen at http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102606M.shtml , and if memory serves, an author named Gary Sick wrote a book on it. Additionally, there is his involvement in the Iran/Contra scandal from which so many complicit characters have been resurrected in this criminal administration.

Politics is the lifeblood of your staffers and you, and you would certainly know where more of the Republican skeletons are buried, so I encourage you to do your jobs and protect the American people from yet another Bush appointee to whom the Constitution is just a "goddamned piece of paper," as our insipid alleged president is reported to have said.

Thank you,
---me---