Senator Kennedy,

I am profoundly disappointed in your retreat from your proposed filibuster against the Ashcroft nomination. I have heard the excuses, the spin, and the statements of helpless indignation. 'You would've if you could've.' Well, whether these things are true or not doesn't much matter; truth has rarely been anything more than an accidental companion to politics, and as such has lost its authority with the electorate.

Politics has become a science of mitigating losses and diminishing returns, to the point where a criminal regime is tolerated blandly with only enough bluff and fluster to appear high-minded and appease constituencies-- but never enough to threaten the status quo nor qualify as leadership. There is in this nation a disenfranchised majority, who cling to an unrealistic hope that they might achieve for themselves something better, for their individual good-- a nicer home, a better job, more money, a lottery payoff. The concept and the dream of a Greater Good has been systematically assassinated by the stridently conservative politics of the latter Twentieth century. Social progress has been replaced by the politics of self-enrichment as the sine non qua of government. And you have been a part of that.

You are not an evil person, nor a saint, but human. And I am not expecting too much when I ask you to champion the Greater Good. You may be unable, in yourself and in those whom you mentor, to recreate the concept and the dream made real by the Kennedy campaigns of the sixties. Though I believe with all my heart that you can do a great deal more than this: To appease and contain the feral appetites of the rich, to ease the already poor and power-limited into their 'inevitable' disenfranchisement with as little pain as possible, and to assuage the moral guilt of us all. These are ignoble achievements.

We have a treasonable Supreme Court, an illegitimate chief executive, and we have confirmed a bigot as attorney general. If you will not stand up to this blantant threat to freedom, and name it criminal, then please aid posterity by cultivating and supporting a future leader who will.

Sincerely,
Joseph J Burgwinkle