Author: Carnacki

A version of this originally appeared at West Virginia Blue.
Now that vulnerable Republican Rubberstamp Rep. Shelley Moore “Stay the course” Capito chickened out from challenging Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D), we know who our opponent will be in WV-02 in 2008.

I’m looking forward to it.

The newspaper pundits who have consistantly failed to report on vulnerable Republican Rubberstamp Rep. Shelley Moore “Stay the course” Capito’s frequent flip flops and lack of stature in Congress keep trying to tell us she’s doing a “good job.”

A woman who continues to support PResident George W. Bush’s unpopular war with a blank check to keep the troops in Iraq forever is doing a “good job,” they claim. A woman who has handcuffed herself to PResident Bush — now at 28 percent approval — is going to win re-election easily, they claim. I guess since they’ve said Capito does a “good job” they’re not going to bother to report on the reality of Capito and look into her record.

Here’s what Capito said in the Charleston Daily Mail:

“One thing I’ve learned over four campaigns is that I’m going to have an opponent,” Capito said. “I’m sure it will be a tough race. I have no idea who it’s going to be. Again, I don’t spend time thinking about it. If I do a good job, everything will fall into place.“

How “good” of a job is she doing? Here’s her ratings on the nonpartisan Congress.org:

Rank in Chamber: 421 (out of 439)
Rank in Party: 185
Rank in Class of 2000: 38 (out of 38)

Even last year when her Republican party was in power, she was ranked 311. Democrats in the minority party had more stroke in Congress than she did. Heck, she has been nothing but a reliable rubberstamp for crooks like Tom Delay and others.

Here’s how she compares to the rest of the West Virginia caucus:

Senate:
Byrd: 3 out of 100
Rockefeller: 13 out of 100
House:
Rahall: 22 out of 439
Mollohan: 64 out of 439
Capito: 421 out of 439

So, if she does a “good job” everything will fall into place? The only place she is considered to do a “good job” is in the friendly confines of newspaper columns. The rest of us live in reality and Democrats smell blood in the water.

Cue the music.

Four meta items in one diary! There’s so much meta here that baby MetaJesus will weep.

1. I notice some of you are following the new Official Booman Tribune Rules about as well as you followed the old, vague rules. Shape up people.
2. The pushback on The Martinsburg (W.Va.) Journal was a success in more ways than one. Here’s to quote from Sunday’s Carnacki on the counter-attack diary for background:

“The logic of Martinsburg Journal editor Maria Lorensen’s latest “Community Fabric” column unravels quickly in her latest: “My two cents: Don’t do it, Senator.” Lorensen writes that if state Sen. John Unger decides to run, he’ll “get whipped” either in the primary or by Shelley Moore Capito. (There’s a clear dominatrix subtheme in Lorensen’s writing. The matronly Lorensen uses “whipped” at least four times in this one short column. She’s revealing waaaaaay too much of her twisted subconscious in her writing.)”

While I don’t know this for certain, I strongly suspect that the post on West Virginia Blue prompted this from the West Virginia Democrats:

CHARLESTON, WV – The Chairman of the West Virginia Democratic Party said today that recent media accounts are more proof that Rep. Shelley Moore Capito’s (R-WV-2) vulnerabilities are continuing to pile up as the 2008 election campaign season nears.  Both the Martinsburg Journal and the Charleston Gazette printed opinion pieces Sunday with regards to potential Democratic challengers to Capito in the 2008 race.

“Opinion pieces by media types are always entertaining to read, but it’s the opinions of the voters of the Second Congressional District that really matter,” said Nick Casey, Chairman of the West Virginia Democratic Party.  “Democrats at the national, state, and grassroots levels are looking at the race in a different way than years past, and know that there is a strong likelihood of winning back the Second Congressional District in 2008.”

Casey said more too. While I’ve never met Mr. Casey, I have heard that people in the state party do read our site and I can’t remember them responding so quickly and strongly to negative media coverage.

Blog partner Clem followed up with tonight’s post highlighting some of the Journal Junction calls criticizing Maria Lorensen. I strongly suspect the newspaper didn’t publish dozens of others. Thanks to all of you that did call.

3. I’m a draft dodger in the Democratic candidate primary wars on Daily Kos. I suspect there’s many of us staying out of those particular frays. My position is this: we’ve got a great group of candidates and the weakest of our Democratic candidates is 100 times better than the strongest Republican candidate (whoever that is today). I’m not going to write or say anything negative about a Democratic candidate that I’m going to be volunteering my time and energy and money to help elect a few short months from now. Besides, most of my focus is on WV-02. And considering Rule No. 1 of the new Official Booman Tribune Rules (see item 1 above), that’s where your attention should be too.

4. The 3rd Annual Yearly Carnacki is going to happen on Saturday, May 26. This year we’re visiting the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., followed by seeing other touristy destinations in the nation’s Capital and, of course, the traditional drinking. Like previous years, it will be the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.  The first Yearly Carnacki was in Harpers Ferry. The second was in Baltimore. Both were a great deal of fun. Details are coming as to the time. But save the date for a meetup that will be the best* of all other meetups.

All the cool kids are writing these diaries so I thought I would too.

1. BooMan stole my pony. It’s a long story, not surprisingly, involving drinking and gun running on the Mexican border to finance a Swedish crime syndicate. Let’s just say I loved that pony.
2. CabinGirl requires me to give her mojo every time she comments in one of my diaries. Otherwise, she’s threatened to turn over incriminating photos of me from the last Yearly Carnacki meetup (no the pony was not involved. It wasn’t a romantic love with the pony).
3. Chills and Thrills was a great feature even if it did draw only an average of two comments, one of them the tip jar, despite Boo frontpaging it.
4. Back in the day, the GrannyHelen-Carnacki feud tore it up and made the site the destination in blogtopia (yes skippy coined that yadda yadda yadda).
5. I was kicked out of the froggybottom cafe for excessive alcohol abuse — and I hadn’t even been drinking.
6. Two words — no, make it three — West Virginia Blue.
7. All the good Booman Tribune gossip is posted over on other blogs that hate the site.
8. I can never remember if West Virginia falls in the East Thread or the South Thread.
9. Steven D’s feet smell.

10. I’m one of the few people in the world who owes BooMan money, instead of the other way around.

Hoppy Kercheval, the influential radio personality and newspaper columnist in West Virginia, asks a question we’ve been asking at West Virginia Blue for months: will State Sen. John Unger run? We’ve been trying to draft him (after our early effort to Draft ReddHedd (aka Christy Hardin Smith of FireDogLake failed).

The DCCC is also trying to draft him.

And while we’re open to other candidates (see also here, I believe competitive primaries make for better general election candidates and Anne Barth certainly has many fine qualities), Unger has succeeded at winning in red, and ultra important, Berkeley and Jefferson counties.

Kercheval:

WHEN state Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley, answered his cell phone last Tuesday, it was Rahm Emanuel calling.

The Illinois congressman, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Caucus, told Unger: “You’ll win the election.”

Emanuel was talking about the Second District Congressional race in `08, a race Unger has not yet decided to enter, a race for the seat now held by one of the most popular and electable politicians in the state — Republican Shelley Moore Capito.

Unger is getting wooed mightily by state and national Democratic leaders to try to do what other Democrats have tried and failed to do.

snip

 There is, Democratic strategists believe, some planetary alignment for `08, and the sprawling second district. Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Gov. Joe Manchin — two recognizable and easily re-electable Democrats — will lead the state ticket in the next election. Their popularity and get-out-the vote efforts help other Democrats and encourage straight-ticket voting.

Second District voters have elected Capito four times, but it remains Democratic territory. Democrats outnumber Republicans in those 18 counties 60-40. Capito has always had to run uphill.

snip

In 1998 Unger, then 28, came out of nowhere to upset incumbent state Sen. Harry Dugan in the 16th District. Unger believes a convergence of circumstances brought him to that race, and ultimately to victory.

Other points Kercheval does not raise, but that Clem and I and others have talked about in the past.

1. Capito’s fund raising in the first quarter of 2007 is far off from where she was in the same period in 2005.
2. The fund raising is especially important because she has to wage an air campaign since she’s awful at retail politics. Unger, meanwhile, a notoriously budget-conscious political campaigner, knows how to make every penny count. He also is renowned for his personal campaigning, with his walking campaign of his entire district. That face-to-face contact is invaluable in West Virginia. Capito so dreads meeting the public that during parades she walks surrounded by campaign staff in the middle of the route so she doesn’t have to make contact or speak with the public. Her last “town hall meeting” was done over the phone.
3. While Capito usually receives friendly press-coverage from the area newspapers like the Martinsburg Journal, blogs like West Virginia Blue are growing as alternative sources of information. It usually takes 12 months for a web site to reach its largest audience. This site should be peaking just in time for the 2008 race to be heating up.
4. The media, as shown even in the usually Republican friendly Charleston Daily Mail, is becoming more questioning and skeptical of her. The Huntington paper and others have improved of late at catching Capito in saying one thing and doing something else.  
5. Capito’s Congressional rating is appalling. Even when the Republicans controlled Congress she was in the bottom tier. Now she’s ranked 421 of 485. She’s not a freshman Congresswoman. She’s been at it for years. Yet she remains an ineffectual voice for West Virginia. Much of the time she takes credit for federal grants going to fire stations that would have received the money anyway through the grant application process. Other times, she takes credit for projects when the real credit should go to Senator Byrd and Senator Rockefeller — two of the highest rated members of Congress.
6. Rising dissatisfaction within GOP ranks over their own candidates. The West Virginia GOP’s bench is weak otherwise numerous reports of her contemplating a run against Rockefeller for the U.S. Senate in 2008 (Run, Shelley, run!) wouldn’t even be given credence. The top tier Republican candidates are loathed by their own base. Rudy Guiliana, Mitt Romney, and John McCain, have all been hit hard by the rightwing grassroots activists for various reasons. Is the conservative base going to support the formerly gay and abortion rights supporting Romney and Guiliana? Are the independents going to support McCain now that he’s no longer a maverick, but a Bush supporter? Are so-called “values” voters going to come out in numbers for serial adulterer Newt Gingrich? No. A weak Republican presidential ticket in 2008 is not going to help the rest of Capito’s party’s lower tier candidates.

…

Defeating Capito in 2008 won’t be easy. But if she were smart, she’d be sweating despite her past success. Whoever the Democratic candidate is, we’ve been working on the Nov. 4, 2008 election since Nov. 8, 2006.

Many of the most outspoken critics of PResident Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq have been the majority of the West Virginia caucus. (The lone exception has been Republican Rubberstamp Shelley Moore Capito, who keeps tying herself tighter to the war.)

Rep. Nick Rahall is a very strong advocate for peace and diplomacy.

Reporter Paul J. Nyden of the Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail has a story on Rahall (D, WV-03), meeting with peace activists veterans and other citizens at a Charleston church.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., was the main speaker in the Christ Church United Methodist forum moderated by the Rev. William Boyd Grove, former bishop of the West Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Opening the program, Grove expressed sorrow for the deaths of students and professors at Virginia Tech on Monday.

“I hope we are equally saddened by the number of people in our own military who are lost every week, as well as the citizens of Iraq,” Grove said.

A good reminder from the reverend.

Rahall discussed his trip with Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Syria and other countries in the region.

“Communications and conversation do not mean capitulation,” Rahall said. “As Thomas Jefferson said, `Every difference of opinion does not mean disagreement in principle.’ ”

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., sent a letter thanking the groups that hosted Saturday’s meeting.

Recently passed Senate legislation setting a date for U.S. troop withdrawal, Byrd wrote, “makes clear that U.S. soldiers should not be policing a civil war and that the conflict in Iraq requires a political, and not a military, solution.”

Rahall also discussed his concerns on how the war is being outsourced to private contractors.

Rahall also said he was worried by the increase in the use of private military contactors during the Bush administration.

“We are using hired guns,” he said. “When they wake up every morning, their first question is, `Who can I kill today?’ We are paying private mercenaries who are in the killing business.

“When these individuals come back home, they will have to become reacclimated to society,” Rahall said.

Rahall also pointed out a statement by Pennsylvania’s Rep. Jack Murtha (D) that is a good reminder of whose lives are at stake when Bush and Cheney claim “we” are fighting a war.

Murtha noted that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are wrong to say routinely that “We are fighting in Iraq,” Rahall said.

“It is the troops.” Rahall said.

Saturday’s gathering was sponsored by a coalition including the West Virginia Council of Churches, West Virginia Citizen Action Group, West Virginia Patriots for Peace, West Virginia AFL-CIO and American Friends Service Committee.

Our own el cabrero has an excellent report on the event.

First, watch this video of YoungTubersUnited on Earth Day 2007

There’s some good tips.

As some of you know, I worked a second job as a junk collector for nearly two years until I had to quit due to an injury.

People would call the company and we’d go out and haul their junk away.

One of our goals as a company out of a practical matter and as an environmental issue, was to recycle as much as we could, either scrap metal, plastics, tires, computers, good furniture and clothes.

There were many times I recycled entire truck loads and nothing went in the landfill.

You wouldn’t believe the things people buy and then throw out because they didn’t want it: a brand new entertainment surround sound systems still in the original packaging; never worn clothing; furniture in perfect condition that they had lost interest in; stacks of lumber, uncut and straight as the day they came out of the mill (that came home with me and is now a large treehouse in the back yard).

Most of the customers lived in McMansions. They bought things apparently expecting it to make them happy.

But it didn’t. And there’s so many people out there who don’t care their consumerism is damaging the planet.

Here’s some of the comments posted in response to the Young Tubers Earth Day video:

doodyl9 (3 minutes ago)
woohoo for pollution!

AlterGames (2 minutes ago)
you people are such fags

bassist51 (1 minute ago)
Fuck You motherfuckers you guys suck

rednbluematt (18 minutes ago)
Oh Pollution we love you!

Fucking treehugger hippies go cut your hair and wash.

That’s just a small sampling of what we’re dealing with.

If you intend to mark Earth Day, I make a suggestion you drive to your local landfill and take a look at it. To say we’re making mountains out of our spent consumerism is an understatement. And many of those items in there could have been recycled, could have put back into use, were not even needed. It took energy to produce the items and now they’re buried under other consumer debris. Energy that polluted the air and burnt fossil fuels in the production and transportation until it ends up as a man-made mountain and fine particle matter in the air.

So don’t buy what you don’t need.

Mother Earth is dirty and it’s up to us to clean her for if we don’t she’ll become even more ill and we’ll all eventually die.

…

I didn’t mean to end this diary on such a down note. I was going to describe how we’re taking our daughters to a park for a picnic.

Here’s The Pixies with a song appropriate for Earth Day

I was swimmin’ in the Carribean
Animals were hiding behind the rock
Except the little fish
But they told me, he swears
Tryin’ to talk to me

UPDATED: Many commenters in the Big Orange Satan version recommended Free Cycle.

The email from presidentsecretemailaccount@rnc.com caught me by surprise.

DEar Carnaki,

We read you blog post Operation Skahira. We got a job opening for war zar and want you to apply for it. Can you come in Friday for an intervew? I like to meet people fase to fase to get an idea of what they ar like, to look into there sole. This issss all secret. My address is 160 Pencilvanya Ave, Washington. Come around to the back door cause it’ss secret

I leaned back in my chair and considered my best options.
Security was as tight as I expected when I showed up at the gate.

I set my water bottle to the side as the Secret Service agents frisked me for weapons.

“He’s clean,” one agent said.

“I don’t know about that,” said another, looking at my rumpled suit and two-day’s growth on my unshaven face with disdain.

“Well, he’s unarmed at least,” the agent said. “Come this way. The equipment you sent is already set up in the Oval Office.”

I nodded and followed, making careful note of my escape options and security arrangements.

We came to the Oval Office and he opened the door for me.

PResident Bush and Karl Rove were standing in front of the television and DVD player exchanging harsh words as Rove tried to explain the remote control’s functions to Bush. There were two Secret Service agents standing against a wall and two uniformed Marines on the opposite wall.

The two men looked up. From his glare, I could tell my Operation Shakira diary was not the only one Rove had read. Bush walked over to me, his right hand extended to shake hands. In a slow, deliberate fashion, I raised my water bottle to my lips for a sip and ignored his proffered hand. His lower lip pouted and he had the look of a petulant monkey about to throw a feces-hurling tantrum when Rove said in a stage whispery voice, “Remember ees-hay the ape-scay oat-gay.”

Bush turned at him with a confused look. “Whart are you saying, Karl?”

“He said I’m supposed to the scape-goat,” I said.

“Oh, thanks for translating,” Bush said. “I hate when he speaks French.”

“The War Czar position is not going to be a scape-goat,” Rove said. “We’re willing to pay you good money to take the job and to try your Operation Shakira. We just need you to explain it to us.”

“It’s simple,” I said. “You take battery-operated television/DVD sets and blanket Iraq with them with Shakira videos on an endless loop. While all of the insurgents and militia members are hypnotised by the gyrations of Shakira’s hips, the military sends in specially trained units composed of gay men and non-lesbian women soldiers — chosen so that they too do not fall under the spell of Shakira’s hips, to disarm the insurgents and militia members. They replace rifles and RPGs with brooms. Then, when the batteries finally run dead and the videos stop, the men will come out of their stupor and see they have brooms in their hands and see the mess around them and figure they must have been outside to sweep up.”

Rove shook his head. “But I don’t understand how they’re hypnotized. Does she wave money?”

I looked at him dumbfounded a moment. I took the remote from his hand.

“Since my original plan, there has been a development that makes my plan even more potent. Beyonce and Shakira.”

I hit play.

By sheer force of will I averted my eyes. The SS agents and the Marines had drawn closer, their eyes glazed over.

Rove turned from the screen with a perturbed expression. “I don’t get it,” he said. “How is this supposed to distract anyone? I asked my friend Jeff and he thinks your plan is stupid too.”

I hit the stop button. The security detail resumed their posts against the wall. “So why did you invite me here then? Or do you not care if any plan works as long as you can delay until the next administration has to deal with Iraq?”

Another door opened and I felt the air grow chill. “You’re here because I told the Decider to send for you,” Dick Cheney growled as he entered “I’m willing to try anything so that I can free up the troops for my invasions of Iran and Antarctica.”

I turned slowly. I’d been in the presence of diabolical evil before, but the Entity before was 200 proof evil in a non-recyclable bottle and I felt a shiver run up my spine.

But I braced myself for what I knew I had to do.

“So you’re willing to give Operation Shakira a try?” I asked, trying to hide my thoughts behind a poker-face.

“I too don’t understand your plan,” Cheney hissed. “At what part does Halliburton make money off it?”

“Come again?” I said taken aback — though I should have not been.

“Where is the payout for Halliburton?” he asked, drawing closer.

I knew the moment I had hoped for had arrived.

“Take that you foul fiend of Hell! Holy water!” I shouted as I shook the water from my bottle at him.

From past experience with such things I braced myself mentally for the explosive pyrotechnics of his flesh as the holy water splashed upon him.

The water ran down his bald head and face and onto his dark blue suit.

“Oh, nuts,” I said.

Cheney curled his lip. He took a kerchief and wiped dry his glasses, a fiery red glow shining from his eyes.

“All that is holy is made unholy in my presence,” Cheney snarled.

“Get him,” Rove shouted.

I thought quickly. The security detail was approaching quickly. I hit the play button. The men stopped in their tracks.

Bush dove behind his desk, followed a moment later by Rove.

Cheney glared at me. “You’ve ruined my tie and it was newly made from the skin of baby pandas. You’ll pay for this.”

“I guess you know this means I won’t be taking the job of War Czar,” I said.

“General Sheehan turned us down the same way,” Cheney said.

A version of this originally appeared at West Virginia Blue.
What Meteor Blades said:

The British government did not attempt to write itself out of the Geneva Conventions. However, as America’s chief ally in the war Tony Blair helped George Bush concoct, it certainly tainted itself with abuses of the sort given the seal of approval by Gonzales. So the cognitive dissonance that sounds when we hear Tony Blair trying to take the moral high ground in this matter is deafening. As Ronan Bennett writes in this morning’s Guardian:

Turney may have been “forced to wear the hijab”, as the Daily Mail noted with fury, but so far as we know she has not been forced into an orange jumpsuit. Her comrades have not been shackled, blindfolded, forced into excruciating physical contortions for long periods, or denied liquids and food. As far as we know they have not had the Bible spat on, torn up or urinated on in front of their faces. They have not had electrodes attached to their genitals or been set on by attack dogs.

They have not been hung from a forklift truck and photographed for the amusement of their captors. They have not been pictured naked and smeared in their own excrement. They have not been bundled into a CIA-chartered plane and secretly “rendered” to a basement prison in a country where torturers are experienced and free to do their worst.

That is one of the many reasons why we at West Virginia Blue write so much in opposition of U.S. torture policies.

This is one of the many reasons why Senator Jay Rockefeller should hold a Senate investigation on the torture of prisoners by U.S. forces — either by the CIA, private contractors or military services.

As chairman, Mr. Rockefeller has promised to conduct more vigorous oversight of the spy agencies than did his Republican predecessor. He is asking whether having a separate CIA detention and interrogation system is necessary and worth the toll on the American image abroad.

“The widespread reports about secret prisons and torture, whether accurate or not, have damaged the United States’ reputation around the world and hindered counterterrorism efforts with our allies,” he said.

Senator Rockefeller, torture and degradation of prisoners are never appropriate for intelligence gathering.

The Iranian acts against these British sailors and Marines should be condemned. It is a violation of the Geneva Conventions to parade captives before a camera and to require them to write propaganda letters under duress. When Rush Limbaugh described the abuse of captives at Abu Ghraib as no worse than a “fraternity prank,” I thought of how I would have reacted if U.S. prisoners had been treated in such a manner. I would have been outraged and demanding we fought and annihilated any country that would treat our people in such a manner. I knew when Abu Ghraib happened, we had lost in Iraq and no “victory” on the battlefield would make up for the abject surrender of our morals. The crimes at Abu Ghraib were not the work  of a “few bad apples” like West Virginia’s Lynndie England. The crimes at Abu Ghraib (see wvblueguy’s diary here) were the result of official U.S. policy from the so-called commander in chief who approved “alternative interrogation techniques” and the vice president who told the people under them to “take the gloves off.”

When a top administration official like Alberto Gonzalez  writes that the Geneva Convention is a “quaint” document that no longer applies to the United States — a country that had been a beacon of justice and liberty — would conduct itself, it sends a signal to the rest of the world that such reprehensible and immoral acts are acceptable.

The United States is a world leader and look where we’ve lead.

Instead of being able to take the high moral ground — the ground where that beacon once shone — we have to look at how such a tyrannical country as Iran abuses its captives and know that we are worse than Iran in how we treat our captives. We cannot look down from the moral high ground on Iran because we’re sunk even deeper in the muck than they are.

When I began my Let’s fight cancer series on March 9, I was inspired in large part by Jane of Fire Dog Lake, Dreaming of Better Days and station wagon. My diaries so far have focused on getting people to write Congressional leaders for research funding. Other diaries will encourage people to write to newspapers and to raise funds for local hospices and Meals on Wheels.

With this diary, I’m trying to get a sense of how big of an issue this is for the Booman Tribune community.
Since that first diary, numerous other diaries by others on the news of cancer returning to Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow led numerous other people to post that they either currently have cancer, have been treated for cancer or have an immediate family member or loved one with cancer.

Here’s a special request to help with my tallying. If you currently have cancer or have been treated for cancer, or someone in your immediate family (and I mean family in a Whedonesque sense) please put an * (asterick) in your subject head. If you have told your story before, please include it in this diary so I have just one diary to go through and count.

In the body of your comment, if you wish to participate of course, what type of cancer you or your family member had and what type of treatment was involved? Please include any other information you wish.

In addition, what should the letters to newspapers say? I’ve found it helps to give people the framework of a script to use to write their own message around.

Thank you.

UPDATE: Whedonesque family: If you are a man and you consider someone your husband, that is your family. If your best friend is like the brother or sister that you always wanted, he or she is your family. It’s a broad definition of family, but you know it when you see it.

In the comments, include self and family. In the poll just vote Yes if you have cancer.

He looks and sounds like the kind of young man that most any father would be proud to call his son.

Kevin Landeck was 26, but the fresh-faced Army captain looks much younger in a recent family photo. He looked after his men and wanted to bring them home alive. The incompetence of the Bush administration angered him, he wrote in emails to his family.

After Kevin Landeck was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, his father wrote President Bush a letter.

When Kevin’s father Richard Landeck did not get a response from the president, he sent the letter to a columnist with The Chicago Tribune:

I had many conversations with Kevin before he left to serve as well as during his deployment. The message he continued to send to me was that of incompetence. Incompetence by you, (Vice President Richard) Cheney and (former Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld. Incompetence by some of his commanders as well as the overall strategy of your decisions.

When I asked him about what he thought about your decision to “surge” more troops to Baghdad, he told me, “until the Iraqis pick up the ball, we are going to get cut to shreds. It doesn’t matter how many troops Bush sends, nothing has been addressed to solve the problem he started.”

Answer me this: How in the world can you justify invading Iraq when the problem began and continues to lie in Afghanistan? I don’t want your idiotic standard answer about keeping America safe. What did Sadaam Hussein have to do with 9/11? We all know it had to do with the first Iraq war where your father failed to take Sadaam down.

Snip

You or Cheney or Rumsfeld will never know the anguish, the worry, the sleepless nights, the waiting for the loved one who may never return. If the soldiers were able to do their jobs and the ego’s of politicians like you, your “cronies” and some commanders had their heads on straight, we would be out of this mess which we should not be involved with in the first place.

My family and I deserve and explanation directly from you……not some assistant who will likely read this and toss it. This war is wrong.

I want you to look me and my wife and daughter directly in the eye and tell me why my son died. We should not be there, but because of your ineptness and lack of correct information I have lost my son, my pride and joy, my hero!

I’ve said before, no torment in hell can probably match the suffering of losing a child. I certainly cannot imagine it and I’ll hold my children tighter tonight when I see them because of this.

Richard Landeck and his wife went to their first peace rally this past weekend.

They have already paid a price and the truth is that no matter how many of us protested before the war, we could not stop Bush from the war. He lied to the American people and many wanted to believe him. Good and decent people in the United States, Britain, and Iraq have suffered as a result.

For the Landecks, it is too late. How many more Kevins are going to die for Bush’s lies?