October 2, 2002

Trent Lott: Shut YOUR Mouth

A BuzzFlash Reader Commentary
by Lois Erwin

Dear Buzz,

While three Democratic Congressmen, including Rep. Jim McDermott, (D-WA), were in Iraq this past week, Senator Trent Lott apparently thought he had some right to strip those Congressmen of their inalienable American right to freedom of speech. It seems Trent Lott didn't like the questions the three duly-elected Congressmen were asking and said (among other things) that Rep. McDermott "should shut his mouth and come home"!! I wrote the following letter to Trent Lott after hearing his remark.

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Dear Senator Lott,

I was appalled to hear that you had said Rep. Jim McDermott should "shut his mouth and come home." Who put you in charge of the world? As a matter of fact, I think you should shut your mouth and go home to Mississippi, where apparently people don't mind rude behavior on the part of their senator.

For someone who was so eager to avoid serving in the military during the Vietnam war, you are certainly blithe to send other young men and women off to die in Iraq. And, for what? Saddam Hussein is not Osama bin Laden. It was under the leadership of Osama bin Laden that 19 (mostly Saudi) men attacked America on Sept. 11. Saddam Hussein has not been a threat to America for the past ten years.

After his month-long vacation in August, Mr. Bush all of a sudden decided Saddam Hussein had become our Number One target. If Saddam Hussein was such a threat to America, why did our president go on a month-long vacation in Texas, leaving Americans unprotected against Saddam Hussein? Mr. Bush is our Commander-in-Chief; shouldn't he have stayed in Washington D.C., working out plans for our protection?

Earlier in the year, Mr. Bush declared that Osama bin Laden could run but not hide; apparently Osama bin Laden has done both; he has successfully run and successfully hidden.

Is Mr. Bush going to forget about the threat to Americans from Osama bin Laden? When is Mr. Bush going to capture or kill Osama bin Laden? When is Mr. Bush going to capture all the al Qaeda who escaped from Afghanistan to neighboring countries? We KNOW the al Qaeda are a threat to our national safety and yet Mr. Bush prefers to take our minds off his inability to protect us from the al Qaeda by claiming Saddam Hussein is an immediate threat to our nation.

Those are a lot of questions for you to answer before you go around telling any other elected representative to "shut his mouth." Did it ever occur to you that Rep. McDermott may have been asking questions that a lot of other Americans might like answers to?

I look forward to learning your answers to all my questions.

A sincere, loyal and patriotic American,

Lois Erwin

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