Thursday, August 9, 2018

Please pass the borscht.


We are quickly approaching the halfway point.

This is Letter #24 in my Thursday Thrashing Series.

Not long ago, Alabama's Senator Doug Jones got all the press when he beat Roy Moore in a special election. If you haven't met his Republican counterpart, today you will.

Say hello to Comrade Richard Shelby.

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8.9.18

Senator Richard Shelby
304 Russell Senate Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Shelby,

I have been around old people. I know that sometimes they say funny things. Or their minds have turned to mush and they make odd decisions.

"Grandpa, that's not the TV, that's the microwave oven. Come sit over here."

It is for that reason that I am willing to cut you, an 84 year old man, a little slack. For the record, if you've seen any of the 23 previous letters written to Republican US Senators as as part of my yearlong campaign, you'd know that I'm not big on slack cutting.

Last month, you joined a group of fellow Republicans on a knuckle-headed trip to Moscow. And as part of the Prostrate Eight, you deferred, demurred and genuflected before your new Russian overlords. 

And you did it all during the July 4th holidays, our national celebration of independence, freedom and liberty. 

You have to admit, the optics on that suck. Or, as they might say in the Motherland, suckski.

But I spent many years in the corporate business world and I know a little about reluctant supplication. 

On many occasions, I answered to creative directors who were directors in no sense of the word, nor had any inkling of creativity. 

For years, and for no other reason than to take home a biweekly paycheck, I bowed down to vice presidents and C-Suiters who were nothing more than lumpish, tickle-brained, barnacle-bellied clotpoles.  

And finally, and this one still sticks in my craw, at the peak of my career, I toiled silently for a drunken douchebiscuit who resided permanently at the bottom of a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka.

What I'm trying to say Senator is,  "I get it." 

At some point, at some time, for some reason, we all have to do what we don't want to do. So when Precedent Shitgibbon calls and says he needs you to do the Kremlin Two Step, you, a good ole boy from Alabama, put on your dancing shoes.

But I'm scratching my hairless head over something else you did.

At the Helsinki Summit, Vlad the Dad suggested sending US diplomats and officials back to Russia to answer questions about crimes committed in the past. You know, for a friendly "interrogation."

To their credit, 98 US Senators, including every one of your Republican colleagues, voted vociferously to deny sending anybody back for a Moscow Sit-down. Understandably, Senator John McCain, in the throes of brain cancer, did not participate in the vote.

Un-understandably neither did you.

It's got me wondering.

How many rubles have they sent to your offshore bank account?
Were you promised a lavish dacha in Rublevka?
Is it Shelby or is it Shelboyevich?

Suddenly, that whole Crimson Tide thing makes a lot more sense.

Best,



Rich Siegel
siegelrich@mac.com
Culver City, CA 90232









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