In Search of The Grand Unifying Blue Dog Bill

Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL 8th)
United States House of Representatives

Dear Rep. Bean,

I'm writing to thank you for your vote to give Inquisitor General Gonzales the power to wiretap Americans without a warrant. I'm sure he'll use that power as responsibly as he's conducted the rest of the Department of Justice's business. Perhaps, he'll even delegate it to some lucky recent Regent University grad who needs to beef-up his or her resume to compensate for attending a fourth-tier law school.

I see you also voted for the bankruptcy and habeas corpus/torture bills. That gives me an idea. How about sponsoring legislation to combine all three? Think about it. Let's say someone at Providian or MBNA notices that Joe Sixpack has been a little late on a few payments. Wouldn't it be great if he could just call up "Earl," the assistant to the Assistant Deputy Division Director for Consumer-Related Crimes and say "Hey, I need a tap on Joe Sixpack to see if he's fulfilling his responsibilities to us before he goes grocery shopping," and get a wiretap?

And let's go a little further and say that the wiretap provides evidence that Mr. Sixpack is indeed, putting the feeding of his family ahead of his revolving credit repayment responsibilities. Shouldn't the Department of Justice have the power to detain him long enough to apply a little high voltage credit counseling to his potentially deadbeat testicles. I sure think so.

And if he still defaults? Well, I'd say we've just added another family to our list of guest workers without needing to issue a single warrant.

I hope you'll consider it. It'd surely earn you a bit of good will at the White House (although given your record, you probably already have it). Heck, who knows, maybe the assistant to the Assistant Deputy Division Director for Consumer-Related Crimes will return the favor by ordering a wiretap on your primary opponent.

Heterosexually yours in a chaste and biblically approved kind of way,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Elsewhere: Shortened version posted to Rep. Bean's Facebook Wall.