Senator Carl Levin

April8, 2008

Senator Carl Levin

524 Ludington Street – LL103

Escanaba, MI 49829-3949

RE: Surges, Exit strategies, Congratulations on nosing out Senator Biden as this year’s poster boy for folliclely challenged Congressman, and a well earned Trifecta for public service.

Senator Levin,

Surges work.

Ask Alexander. Ask Julius Caesar. Ask Roland. Ask Henry the Fifth. Ask the Iron Duke. Ask Sherman. Ask Pershing.

Exit strategies are a bit harder to define.

Franklin Roosevelt sent Chester Nimitz to Pearl Harbor just before Christmas, 1941. He told him not to come home until he sailed into Tokyo Harbor. He didn’t tell him how to do it or how long to take. “Don’t come home until you do it.” And that’s what he did.

It took Lincoln 3 years to find Grant – Incidentally, today is the 146^th anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh of which it is said that after the battle “the South never smiled again” – during which time the words “exit strategy” were never heard. Although I know that correlation is not causation it is well to note that both the New York Times and the Democratic Party were vehemently and viciously opposed to both Lincoln and the War. Lincoln was regularly called a “baboon”. In 1864 the Democratic Party was in favor of a cease fire and direct negotiations with the Confederate States of America. It would not require 7 league boots to jump the Logical chasm of reading support of slavery into such a proposal.

Sherman’s taking of Atlanta secured Lincoln’s reelection. His subsequent surge shortened the war by at least 18 months and ended slavery that much quicker. Thus, the Logical consequences of the combined New York Times and the Democratic Party strategy of “War is heck; can’t we all get along and besides slavery isn’t so bad unless you’re a slave” was not visited upon us. If it had been try to imagine how really, really mad Pastor Wright would be. Try to imagine how ‘unproud’ Ms. B. Hussein Obama would be of her country.

Speaking of exit strategies “Cartago delenda est” was a pretty good one. I suppose we’re too civilized to update it. Pity.

Speaking further of exit strategies how about one for the never ending War on Poverty? We’ve been marching ‘line abreast’ into a fusillade and an enfilade of automatic weapons for 45 years. How about a truce? How about a cease fire? How about some R&R for the grunts?

After 45 years we can judge the effort, not by its noble intentions, but by its results. The reasons for starting the war – back when stamps cost .06 cents and Xerox machines and Instamatic cameras were objects of awe – are bedimmed by the fog of war. Suffice to say this. We still haven’t taken the mountain. We have taken tremendous casualties. Maybe it’s time to try a new strategy.

Battles are “damn close run things”. The Russians beat the Germans in World War 2 because they had more people than the Germans had bullets. 45 years into this war and there is not one good song, poem, play, or movie to come out of it. That alone speaks volumes.

I see by your C.V. that you had an expensive education. Based on your public positions the amount of dollars spent on it resulted neither in wisdom nor knowledge. That’s why I tossed in the History lesson.

I watched your performance on TV this morning. That’s why I know that reasoned arguments will fall on deaf ears. Incidentally, speaking of ears, and I am presuming that Global Warming has not reached all of Michigan, you could have the first pair of built in ear muffs in the country. You could be a trend setter, you old dog you. Your comb over is both ecologically sensitive and environmentally sound. By using your own hair, whether it is from your nose, your chest, or your arm pits to keep your ears warm cuts down on the need for sheep. Borygymous bovines and their toxic eructations are a great source of greenhouse gases. Who needs wool? Sequitur… the surplus sheep could be used to feed the drowning polar bears or the wolves newly restored to Yellowstone Park. A win-win situation.

Yet I had to judge your performance in its entirety. I couldn’t let personal feelings interfere. Thus I announce that you are this year’s first Trifecta winner.

HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK

POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH

SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR

God’s Holy Trousers, but there is now a nationwide belief that people from Michigan have hair growing out of their jackets. It looks like some of it comes from your coccyx or scrotum. You then top it off with polyurethane. Who says the wet look is dead? Not I and certainly not you.

I have the feeling that you would ban pictures of Kojak and Yul Brenner as being harbingers of hate speech.

I visited your brother’s web site. The only person with more post-auricular hair is Krusty the Klown. Maybe you could borrow some hair from him. Your brother; not Krusty.

Both your web sites proclaim that you were graduated from Central High School in Detroit.

Could you tell me if any of your children went to Central High School? How about your grandchildren? Could you tell me if there is anybody named Levin currently enrolled in Central High School in Detroit?

That’s another war – urban education – that, despite throwing gazillions of dollars at it, we seem to have lost.

How about some hearings on that one?

Meanwhile, enjoy your honors. Wear them proudly. You got them the old fashioned way. You earned them.