Congresswoman Debbie-Wasserman Schultz

September 17, 2009

Congresswoman Debbie-Wasserman Schultz
10100 Pembroke Pines Boulevard
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33026

RE: An important date for both of us

My dear Congressperson,

Time flies. I mean it really, really flies when you’re enjoying yourself. It’s been 8 years [September 18, 2001] since you sent two men from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, men with badges and guns, to my house to question me about something I wrote to you.

I am not sure if men with badges and guns, Agent Mineva and Agent Thomas, constitute a “slippery slope” or a “chilling effect”. I will share with you for the first time that one of the men with a badge and a gun told me that his department loved my letters to you.

Your response to criticism was, of course, the typical and expected response of any modern American Liberal to any dissent. It consists of, to paraphrase Nat Hentoff, “free speech for you but not for me”. Orwell told us that a “boot in the face” is the hallmark of modern politics. I always like to comment on the claim you make in your resume that you have two degrees in Political Science. To me it is inconceivable that you would not be aware of Sophocles who said 25 centuries ago where Political Science began that “Free men speak with free tongues”. It would be as easy for me to believe you if you said that you loved the cello but never heard of Bach.

It is a hard learned lesson that not all brown shirted fascist thugs wear boots and speak a foreign tongue. Some wear designer clothes and speak of equality.

That was then; this is now.

Two things.

#1 – In February, when all things were possible at the beginning of the reign of Lord Barack the Beneficent and blessed be his name, you said that once “some adjustments” were made in Afghanistan the problems there, in what modern American Liberals called the “good war”, would be solved. Lions would lay down with lambs and the call for Farsi and Pashto speaking ACORN community organizers would be a stimulus program all in itself.

7 months later the “adjustments” now include 40,000 more United States troops. I suggest that 40,000 more troops is a bit past an “adjustment”.

Since “You lie” is now the headline du jour I must tell you that a case could be made that you lied in February. Federal statutes say that fraud is committed by commission or omission. Put differently, if you had knowledge of a material fact and didn’t tell your constituents you would be guilty of fraud. Seven league boots are not required to say that fraud is the same as a lie.

If you had no knowledge of any military changes – adjustments if you will – and still you spoke you would be guilty of chicanery.

Either way it is still a lie.

Since you have zero knowledge of History it is my civic duty to tell you that Lyndon Johnson was the peace candidate in 1964. It was said that if Barry Goldwater had been elected we would wind up with 500,000 men in Vietnam. I believe the dry hand of Clio says that had Goldwater been elected U. S. involvement in Vietnam would have been over by July 4, 1965.

Will Cindy Sheehan’s lamentations be any less mournful, any less lachrymose, if a Democrat is in the White House? Will there be a new row of headstones in Arlington Cemetery for soldiers killed for an “adjustment”?

The country is owed an explanation of the overall strategy in Afghanistan and the tactics that will be employed to implement same. Franklin Roosevelt told Chester Nimitz on Christmas, 1941 to go to the Pacific and not to come back until he had beaten the Japanese.

Lyndon Johnson bragged that a North Vietnamese “shithouse wouldn’t be bombed unless he approved it”. At the very least the Congress should have a voice in this escalation. John Kennedy said that “anyplace is defensible if free men choose to defend it”.

We cannot send people into harm’s way and tell them that you can only bomb the north side of the marketplace on alternate Tuesdays. Sometimes a butcher’s bill is required. You may wish to read up on Grant and Sherman. If you think the bill might be too high your obligation is to speak out against incurring it. If you favor some half-assed, half-way measure you will be complicit in the future deaths of American soldiers.

#2 – Do you know who said “They are a faraway people about whom we know little”? It was Neville Chamberlain explaining to Parliament why he signed the Munich Pact and why he was at ease with the disappearance of Czechoslovakia into the voracious, never satisfied Nazi maw. There was one dissenting voice. “We have had to choose between shame and war. We chose shame; we will have war.” History has proved Churchill right.

Now we have the Obama administration announcing the abandonment of the missile shield for Eastern Europe. Once again the Czechs are abandoned. We tossed the Poles in for free. It is particularly ironic that today is the 70th anniversary of Russia invading Poland. Stalin let Hitler, his ally, do the initial heavy lifting.

A case could be made that this country has abandoned Eastern Europe, the first time through the Yalta agreement and the second time by withholding our technology. In the case of Yalta History tells us that several million Russian troops were already there. Today we did it because we forget an old Russian proverb that says “just because a wolf shows you his teeth it doesn’t mean he’s smiling”.

Only people with no sense of History, people like the modern American Liberal now running amok in the White House, think that appeasing Putin will result in him helping us in Iran.

There is a straight line running from Munich to Auschwitz. In addition to 30,000,000 military casualties Hitler put 12,000,000 people in the oven. Half of them were Jews.

Does anyone think that the Israelis will wait until the latest train schedule is posted?

Western civilization was diminished by what it did and, more importantly, what it didn’t do in the 1930s. The poet was right when he called it a “low dishonest decade”.

It is said that Daniel Webster comes back from the grave every now and then. He stops the first person he sees and asks “Neighbor, how stands the Republic”?

Another equally timely Russian proverb is “Keep your ax handy”.

From “adjustments” in Iraq to realpolitik in Europe you have a chance to answer Webster’s question the way he always wanted it answered. “Iron bottomed and copper sheathed.” Perhaps today marks a return to the glory years of the Carter administration. The effect of its foreign policy was simple. It may have been dangerous to be an enemy of the United States but it was fatal to be a friend.

If I have said anything that makes you reach for the phone I must tell you that I live on the water. This time send some SEALS.

Happy Anniversary!



Kevin Smith