Dear Republican Neighbors,

I’m asking you for a favor. Please, please, please write to your leaders in Washington and ask them to take a break. Three weeks, a month, two.

Now, I’m not asking this because of patriotism or fellow feeling for my countrymen, though a break from Republican “leadership” would be good on both those counts. I’m asking because, quite frankly, I’d like a break from letter writing.
Sure, the combination of keystone cops competence and Sopranos ethics make them easy to write. Sure, it takes all of ten minutes to do the necessary research to show how badly the Republicans in government are performing. Yes, I’m a professional writer and dashing off a couple hundred words every few days is the least I can do for my country. But, I’m getting tired. My ability to feel outrage is starting to go numb. All I’m asking for is a few weeks of no new Republican bad news.

Ask them to stop with the corruption, the cronyism, and the inept policies. Ask them to quit getting themselves indicted and investigated. To stop the never-ending sea of red ink. I don’t care what they do. They can all go on a retreat to the undisclosed place where they store Dick Cheney most of the time.

I’m not even asking that you convince your leaders to do something good or competent. Let’s face it, I’m too much of a realist to expect that. Just a one month hiatus from the damage they’re doing to the country. Is that too much to ask? Heck, it might even help your electoral prospects for 2006. And if it does, you’ll know that all you have to do to improve the Republican brand’s image is to get them to hide from the light for a while, like cockroaches. It’s really not that much of a stretch. Try it, you might like it.

Come on, my fingers are starting to bleed from trying to keep up with the Republican scandal machine.

Thanks,
Your loyal opposition.