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May 15, 2009
Dear
President Obama,
If I thought
you would ever read a personal letter that I might address to
you at the White House, I would be sending this one there, but
my experience now tells me that it would never reach your
desk. So I am
writing to you publicly hoping that it increases the
probability that you will read it.
I hope you understand.
I’m writing
to tell you that even though you have been in office only a
short time you have already lost my confidence and support.
Here’s why: I
believe the most important decisions you have already made
indicate to me that you are not prepared to honor your oath of
office. This is
particularly disappointing given the fact that you were a law
professor and legal scholar and that you ran on a platform you
described as “hope you can believe in.”
No one is
above the law, but you clearly have put some people above the
law… including yourself.
Your unwillingness to defend the Constitution gives
solace to those who would desecrate it.
Every President is an “Education President”and you
are failing our children by shrinking from your duty.
Mr. President, you cannot defend the Constitution if
you are unwilling to look back in time to see what
happened. That's pretty much what Supreme Court Justices
do every day.
Your policies
and military strategies are resulting in crimes similar to
those pursued by previous administrations.
Innocent people are still being injured, killed, or
brutalized because of policies you’ve unnecessarily
approved. You have
decided now to hide information that We, the American People, need in order to evaluate honestly what crimes,
atrocities, and misdemeanors were carried out in our name so
that we might take responsibility for them, make the necessary
corrections, and seek justice on behalf of those who were
unjustly injured. You
are obstructing that process.
I’m not just talking about the pictures.
I’m talking about all of it.
Our nation
needs to be rebuilt and that must begin by offering a vision
of hope that we really can believe in.
You are not offering that hope.
Belief and trust in the Constitution and those who
pledge to protect and defend it is the foundation on which our
society is built. That
foundation now is undermined, critically damaged, not suitable
for service, crumbling. If
you don’t shore it up it will not hold the weight it was
originally designed to support.
Anything you wish to accomplish must be built on that foundation, but
right now it can no longer even hold the accomplishments
of the past let alone any new ones you might try to add to it.
If you don’t first dedicated yourself to shoring it
up, it will only continue to crumble like a castle built on
sand, and nothing you try to do will work or make a
lasting difference until these deficiencies are corrected.
You have to change course if you hope to accomplish
anything meaningful during your tenure as President.
I am not
against you. I am
always willing to change my mind, believe in, and support a
credible and worthy effort.
I hope you will offer me that opportunity.
Sincerely,
from one citizen to another,
Mark A. Goldman
www.gpln.com
Read:
http://www.counterpunch.org/scahill05152009.html
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