Here an excerpt from my letter to GW of October 20, 2004. It contains a little-known Bushism, one that I think tops them all--I think it indicative of the MSM public "consciousness" that this statement has not received more attention; I've placed the Bushisms in CAPS. For this reason, I have quoted it in the context of my own letter to Bush, which can be viewed in their entirety at
http://www.america-patriots.com/BushLetters.html"... I’m so excited, Mr. Bush. I was reading the Sunday New York Times Magazine last night before bed and guess what? I found a quote by your friend Jim Wallis, the evangelical pastor who heads up the Sojourners. He says you have been looking to hear from someone just like me ever since the year 2000 when you said “I'VE NEVER LIVED AROUND POOR PEOPLE. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY THINK. I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY THINK. I'M A WHITE REPUBLICAN GUY WHO DOESN'T GET IT. HOW DO I GET IT?" Back then, Jim Wallis told you “you need to listen to the poor and those who live and work with poor people.” The exciting part about your conversation with Wallis is that it tells me you’ve actually just been waiting for someone like me to sit down and write—it’s like another sign from God, and it’s so encouraging to see that you’re not the only one in this country sent on a mission from God.
Here’s the beauty of it, Mr. Bush: while you’ve NEVER lived around poor people, I’ve lived with “them” all my life—I don’t know exactly what that’s about, maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, maybe poverty is just a bad habit that’s hard to shake—or is it a disease, like alcoholism? Maybe it’s a learning disability, like dyslexia, I don’t know. At any rate, I take this as God’s way of telling me that this lifelong engagement of mine with poverty and poor people has blessed me with the privilege of answering one of your questions and contributing to the democratic process in this country by telling you what poor people think. Even though, by May 2003, you had obviously learned a thing or two about poor people, otherwise you wouldn’t have said, “FIRST, LET ME MAKE IT VERY CLEAR, POOR PEOPLE AREN'T NECESSARILY KILLERS. JUST BECAUSE YOU HAPPEN TO BE NOT RICH DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE WILLING TO KILL," it still seems there’s more to know about poor people, and I feel blessed and honored to be the one God chose to tell you what I know."
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