Dear Mr. President:
Like many, I fell for you when you spoke at the 2004 convention. I fell hard. I had no doubt but that if anyone could save ourselves from ourselves, it was you. It took four years, a few primaries, and a fundraiser in San Francisco before you gave me any reason, albeit a small one, to doubt.
It was those remarks you made about poor West Virginians clinging, in times of dearth, to their guns and churches. I wondered if you'd ever listened to the bittersweet and haunting music that had emerged, along with guns and churches, from that hardscrabble country.
And I thought about the things I've clung to.
My golden retriever, Three Bears, for example. She was so weak at the end that she died from the anesthetic. The other chemicals, the chemicals that kill, weren't necessary, were just pro forma, the vet said. Which means? I clung to Three Bears at least one and maybe two or even three years longer than I should have.
So why in God's name did I cling to Three Bears?
Beyond, that is, my neediness and concomitant selfishness?
Her velvety ears for one thing. And scratching this other special spot on the top of her head, the one that only she and I knew about. And the way she embodied unconditional love, tried to teach me. That's a third reason. And maybe the fourth is the most important for you and me. She was brilliant, of course. Yet she thought with her heart.
Another thing I cling to is my church. Oh, it's Jesuit, ecumenical, so maybe it's an okay church to cling to.
Hard to say. You see I am rarely certain about anything anymore. But if this self-doubt is a good trait, I pray that it's contagious. That it will infect thereby soften the heart of the body politic.
Yourself?
I could be wrong but I don't think that you, Sir, cling to a gun or a fundamentalist church. But since we all cling to something, I have a bold question: are you clinging to yourself, to your conciliatory bent?
If so, that's perfectly understandable. If we were personal friends I'd say, "So you have a trait that is admirable but may not serve you well as president? Welcome to the human race."
Clinging to that conciliatory bent is more than understandable.
But not acceptable to this constituent. You chose to run for the highest office in the land, for the opportunity to lead three hundred million. And if you want greatness, you're going about it the wrong way.
But I tell you this as well: it's not too late.
And how to achieve greatness?
Charles Darwin perhaps said it best. "It is not the strongest... nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change."
I do not believe that you've adapted, Mr. President, that you've let go of your conciliatory bent. Consequently, with the decision to negotiate with fanatics, with the signing of that budget bill, I fear you've doomed yourself politically. For based upon the little I know about economics, a bad situation is about to become worse. Much worse. And that your legacy, as the fear consumes us, may be President Perry.
Those who say "It can't happen here" have forgotten what happened to the Native Americans, the slaves, the mill workers, and the poor in our country right now.
It can happen here. It already is happening here.
And the only man who stands between the hate-mongers and a civil discourse is the man you have chosen not to be.
But it's not too late.
All you have to do is choose the path of greatness.
And what is that?
Putting country first. Risking, indeed pretty much guaranteeing, defeat in 2012. But for the best not the worst of reasons.
Because you sit where you sit, you have a moral obligation to invoke the 14th Amendment; seize emergency powers, and at the expense of a second term do what you and the Congress should've done during the first 100 days: give us a stimulus package composed of real spending, not tax cuts. And on a scale that is much larger than the first.
Will it work at this late hour?
No guarantees in this life.
But I know this much about economics: it took World War Two--all that deficit spending-- for Roosevelt to get us out of the Great Depression. And to my knowledge, a Keynesian approach is all you have left.
But what else do I know about economics? Little.
I speak with such certainty but as I say, I can rarely be certain about anything anymore. But if this self-doubt is a good trait, I pray that it's contagious. That it will infect thereby soften the heart of the body politic.
Folks are scared,.
Maybe you are.
I know I am.
You staked your presidency on a dicey plan to kill Bin Laden. And you do not brag, as your predecessor did, about the terrorists you catch. So I know you possess both the courage and grace to do the right thing. As President Kennedy would have. At least by June 10th of 1963. Most people don't know about that speech he gave at American University. Whether he intended to or not, in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, his vision of world peace had grown exponentially. And his quest for world peace, as expressed in that speech, was radical. As radical as any words Gandhi left for us.
Bobby Kennedy? Had he lived, had he won, he would've put country first long ago., regardless of the political and personal consequences.
Gerald Ford? He didn't win that Profile in Courage Award for running a cojones deficit. He staked his presidency on the Nixon pardon, knowing full well that much of the electorate would misinterpret his motives. Which were simple: to get the item off his desk so he could attend to being president.
And he knew that his opponent would use it against him. That it might cost him a second term. Which it did.
Lincoln?
The 14th Amendment was created for him. And the language broad enough to apply to future presidents. As you, a past and maybe future professor of Constitutional law, know far better than I.
But all these icons crossed the River long ago.
Must be nice over there. Peaceful.
But we are still here and as Ted Kennedy said to the 9/11 families and for all I know to himself: "We go on because we must."
The legal implications? What do I know about the law? But the two best legal minds that I know of have divergent opinions on the matter.
One lawyer insists that invoking the 14th will lead to impeachment, possibly jail time.
To which I say: He could be right. But having taught in the prisons for many years, my guess is that you wouldn't be incarcerated.. And if by some fluke you were? Well, what your Secret Service detail, you'd be the safest convict in America.
Most important, perhaps, you could hold your head high, knowing you did the right and moral think.
The other best legal mind tells me you have a right, a legal right, to invoke the 14th. But also says I ought to get my legal details straight because many attorneys read the Huffington Post.
I cannot do so for I am not a lawyer myself, let alone among the best legal minds in America. But given these divergent views, it seems to me that you have a choice. And I urge you to think with your heart, to do the right and moral thing.
I like you, Mr. President.
Always have and always will.
I am fond of your family as well.
And I, along with 300 million other Americans, am part of your extended family, just as you are a part of ours.
If we were close personal friends I'd nothing better than to spend an afternoon shooting the breeze. Listening and learning from you. And maybe doing a little teaching of my own. Telling you how much I learned from the unlikeliest of students, convicts; how much I learned from wolves howling in the wilds of the far north, and a golden retriever here at home. And from a God by whatever name who I do not begin to understand.
Speaking of whom, I ask God "Why" many times every day. Why all this suffering.? What's the point?
God by whatever name doesn't answer. Or maybe He does. Maybe His silence is saying what is is, and the question is not "Why" but "How?" How to proceed with the grace embodied by the best of those presidents who came before.
They cannot, maybe, furnish direct help. But their actions can remind you that they, too, were frightened of change but ultimately embraced it.
Your brilliance can be an impediment, Mr. President.
I ask you to do as Three Bears did, as you did in your speech on race, to think and speak more deeply from your heart.
I ask you to tell the people that you made a mistake. That's human. Understandable. The truth. And you might, by so doing, re-acquire the trust of some citizens.
And I ask you, again, to sacrifice even your conciliatory bent, to invoke the 14th Amendment, give us the stimulus that we have never seen, that we need, and with that sacrifice any chance you may have of getting re-elected.
This is your chance for greatness, Mr. President.
But I do not ask you to invoke the 14th Amendment because it will be an act of greatness, but because it is the right and moral thing to do.