Letter 2 America for May 23, 2014

Dear America,

When I hear things like what John Boehner said when confronted at a news conference by the single most prominent Hispanic news man in America, I am reminded of Art Buchwald.  Buchwald had a syndicated column in which he often wrote farcical, dystopian accounts of government panjandrums making non-equatorial (there's no such word, but you know what it means) pronouncements to the world around them, including to questions by the press, except when Buchwald wrote them, they were satirical; he had his tongue in his cheek.  When Boehner does it, he thinks he's being smarter than everyone else...that no one notices that his bombastic evasions are just one step away from gibberish; he has his foot in his mouth.  Yesterday, Jorge Ramos, the most avuncular newsman on Hispanic television--the Mike Wallace of Univision--asked Boehner why he was preventing a vote on immigration reform, specifically the Senate bill that had been passed and forwarded to The House of Representatives in April where it has languished without being debated or considered because Boehner won't allow it to come to the floor for debate and consideration. In response, Boehner launched into a nonsensical diatribe on the subject of "Obamacare" and the confidence in President Obama that, according to Boehner, the American people lacked because he had postponed several deadlines for various provisions to become active.  It was a preposterous, abjectly transparent evasion of the question; a red herring nonpareil.  Ramos then asked the same question two or three more times, his inquiry meeting with a "I just gave you an answer to your question" response each time until Boehner finally said, "Thank you for your thoughts," and just wondered off to the next reporter's question.  It was as if he had been endowed by Kurt Vonnegut with some kind of cloak of rationality inscrutability, so that no one could see that he wasn't really the Speaker of the House, but was in reality the Mad Hatter.

But when these things happen, and they seen to happen frequently, it seems to me that all of the news media--not just Rachel Maddow and the rest of the MSNBC answer to Fox-TV--should be reporting it and following up on the question.  Every American voter should have on his lips the question, why won't John Boehner allow a vote on the immigration that has already passed in one house of our federal congress.  Mind you, I'm not asking why every American voter isn't asking why the Senate immigration bill sitting in The House wasn't passed.  I'm not even asking that all Americans ask John Boehner whether he is for it or against it.  I'm asking why every American isn't asking why, with regard to an issue as important as immigration reform, no vote is being taken in the House of Representatives...what people like Boehner call "the people's house"...when one could be taken immediately except for the fact that The Speaker of our House won't permit it.  In other words, we would have an up or down vote...one that every legislator could be held accountable for...and the issue could be resolved except for the interdiction being perpetrated by one single man: John Boehner.  It isn't the first time he has prevented an issue from being resolved by a legislative vote, and unless his feet are held to the fire, it won't be the last.  That means that John Boehner can single-handedly veto any bill without ever having to be accountable for it.  That is anti-democratic.  It is totalitarian, and our news media--the freest press in the world--doesn't even bother to point it out.

Where you when we need you, Diane Sawyer?

Your friend,

Mike