Two Parties, Two Letters

A few weeks ago, I wrote both my Senators concerning my dismay at the fact that we needed a Minister of Propaganda (Euphemistically, Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy) and that Karen Hughes was the choice. I mean, if we're going to resort to propaganda, we might as well have a competent propagandist in charge. I also expressed my dismay at John Bolton's nomination to be our ambassador to an organization he'd love to dismantle. Here are the replies, the first from Ken Salazar, moderate Democrat, member of the Gang of 14 and hero. The second is from Wayne the Torturer Allard, Bush syncophant and proponent of stress positions, dobermans and black leather. Here's Senator Salazar's response:

Dear Stephen:

Thank you for contacting me to express your concern about the current state of affairs in our government. I understand your frustration and appreciate your taking time to express your concerns directly to me.

I share your concerns about the appointment of Karen Hughes as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, as well as your opposition to the appointment of John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Both of these positions are critical to improving the reputation of the United States abroad.

Ambassador Hughes was approved in the Senate on July 29. 2005. I question if she is the right person to for this position, and I am troubled by her recent comments in Jakarta, Indonesia in which she grossly misrepresented statistics regarding Iraq.

Ambassador Bolton was appointed by President Bush without Senate confirmation. On July 29, 2005, I joined 35 of my colleagues in signing a letter to President Bush asking him to not make a recess appointment of Mr. Bolton. This appointment undermines our efforts and sends the wrong message to the world by appointing someone who has not been confirmed by the United States Senate and who has admitted to not being truthful to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the questionnaire he swore was truthful.

Thanks again for writing.

Sincerely,

Ken Salazar
United States Senator

And now, Wayne the Torturer's reply:

Dear fellow Coloradoan:

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail me. This e-mail is an
acknowledgment that your comments and concerns have been received by my
office.

While this response is automatically generated, your e-mail and thoughts
are important to me. Based on the topic you have chosen, you should expect
to receive an issue-specific response either by e-mail or U.S. Postal
mail. If it is not the correct answer, please re-visit my website,
http://allard.senate.gov/contactme/index.cfm, to find a more appropriate
topic. It is important to note this response is automatically generated
and therefore I am unable to receive any reply sent back to this specific
e-mail.

I thank you for visiting my web page and encourage you to continue
checking my website for important updates concerning Colorado issues.

Thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,

Wayne Allard
U.S. Senator
Colorado

Because of a vendor email problem, this may be a duplicate email. If that
is the case, we apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your
understanding.

Lacks that certain je ne sais quoi, doesn't it....