Dear Robert Gibbs

Dear Mr. Press Secretary,

I know you dismissed the progressive left yesterday. I know that you trotted your deputy out today to take the flak. And to say that we, the people who won you the nomination, and built the momentum for your electoral victory, are not representative of the voters on the left. Sir, we ARE the voters on the left.

I've been a defender of the administration to my friends, on both the progressive left and on the reactionary right. I have made excuses about how the administration is constrained by a Senate that is trying to anchor us in the 20th century (at best) being the reason we can't get what we're after. But, you see, I've made those excuses hoping that it really was the GOP that was holding the administration back.

As a donor to the campaign, I get regular, near-daily, emails from "Organizing for America". And in the last week I received a message asking me for my opinions on the first 18 months (along with the usual donation request). I was brutally honest because, well, I believe in brutal honest when I'm asked for my opinion. I gave lower marks than I would have liked to have given because the administration has given too much away in an effort to get Republican vote which one knew would never come. And I berated the administration for that acquiescence to those who did not, will not and never will support the administration in the handy little "other comments" box at the end. I all but compared the actions of the administration to those of an abused wife trying to hold a doomed marriage together.

Well, Mr. Press Secretary, you slapped me in the face. You have told me that my opinions as a progressive American voter don't count because I'm a progressive American, and I apparently believe that everything would be rainbows and choirs of angels on 12:01 pm of 1/20/09. You know, Hillary's dismissal of what Obama's primary supporters were supposed to believe during the death throes of her campaign? But I never was that naive. I've been involved in politics on an active basis in this country for 20 years. Throw in the years of going to Democratic Party spaghetti dinners and pancake breakfasts in Connecticut in the 1970s (which led me to meet Chris Dodd when he was a representative from Norwalk, and to be offered a ride in Ella Grasso's ANG Huey at her offering when I wasn't even 5 years old), and I have been in the game for 35 of my 38 years. Democratic hayrides. Democratic booths at the "Big T" Fair every September.

Mr. Gibbs, if you didn't become active in politics until your college years, like most people, I dare say that I've been involved in Democratic politics longer than you have been. My parents were acquaintances of our US representative, who had been a Nader Raider. Our state rep was a family friend. My grandfather had been a member of both houses of the Ohio legislature (House 1932-36 and Senate 1944-48) as well as a primary candidate for governor. Democratic politics have run through my veins since I was born, which just happened to be Election Day, 1971.

So, I'd like to know, when a Democrat from the Democratic wing of the party says "stop letting the GOP push you around; you're disillusioning the next generation of Democratic voters", do you think that my nearly 39 years of life experience with the dysfunctional way in which our party leaders treat our party base in the effort to appear "bi-partisan" when the GOP has no interest in true bi-partisan government is off-base? Pollyanna wishing for things we will "never be able to achieve" in this country; things like health care as a fundamental right to all, civil rights protections for everyone, and a bit of judicious use of our military? I say that any individual within the present administration who is not committed to progressive values, and willing to suffer a few "no" votes, or bills that die due to failure to close debate in the Senate; any who is willing allow truly progressive legislation to be continually eroded into laws that George W. Bush would be proud of; I would ask you to resign your job NOW and get out of the way of progress.

Sincerely,

A "Professional Liberal"