Letter is now up

[libertango]

The Seattle Times now has my letter online.

I think they did a decent job of editing it. They did a great job of presentation -- the letter is laid out in a separate grid, with this editorial cartoon by the Christian Science Monitor's Clay Bennett on top of my text. Here's the original post, and here's their version :

*^*^*

Potential fallout over Bush's vetoes

Meet DOP: Destructive Old Party

Editor, The Times:

It seems like only a short time ago that President Bush was trying to establish a one-party state, with the Republicans in charge. Increasingly, though, Bush now appears to want the Republican party to completely self-destruct solely out of loyalty to him.

I'm referring to Bush's threatened veto of any Iraq war-funding bill that comes his way with a timetable for withdrawal. It's conventional wisdom that the Republican lawmakers in both chambers will sustain any veto Bush signs. I'm not so sure, though.

Consider U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, our local congressman in Redmond, who was re-elected over challenger Darcy Burner by a mere 3 percentage points.

A bill with a plan for leaving Iraq has an approval rating of 59 percent — almost twice that of the president's rating.

Just how "courageous" are Republicans in marginal districts like Reichert supposed to be? This isn't 2003 — a vote to sustain a veto in favor of a never-ending occupation of Iraq may well be called "The Forced Retirement of Republicans Act of 2007."

There's little doubt in my mind that every Republican who sustains such a veto will get wall-to-wall negative campaign ads on the matter come 2008. A stark choice presents itself to rank-and-file Republicans: Support Bush and get the worst defeat to the GOP since 1932, or vote against the veto and try to salvage something of the party and their own political careers.

— Hal O'Brien, Redmond

Comments

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

So when I finally got around to looking at the paper yesterday evening, I opened the editorial section and turned to the letters, only to see someone else's letter as the first one. I turned to the PI editorial section, handily located on the flip side of the Times editorial section, and verified that there was no letter from Hal in it. Back to the Times section, and comprehension dawns: when they say "featured as the lead letter" they mean spang in the center of the page, with a great whacking editorial cartoon illustrating it and monster neon arrows pointing to it. Naturally, this foiled my usually keen powers of observation.

Good letter.