Dear Barry

Hello, Barry, it's been a while since we last "spoke". I hope you and your family had a happy Independence Day. I 0nly wish that you understood and believed in that independence. You see, Barry, we didn't simply declare independence from Great Britain. We also believed in our independence as individuals.

Barry, I am not sure you really understand Americans. You seem to have lived an almost cloistered life here, never working among ordinary Americans but only in little enclaves where guys like "Joe the Plumber" or me, for that matter, are not friends and neighbors but odd specimens .

Barry, Chicago, Harvard and Columbia U are in the United States, they are not the United States. Barry, I wish you had gone through small town and country America as a youth. Perhaps if you had spent just one fall and winter working in an Arizona cotton gin you would have seen white, black and brown working together and playing some in their time off. You see, Barry, in much of America it is not black vs white vs brown. In our America, Barry, we only think of black or white when we talk about those two guys named Steve. Then, to tell 'em apart it's black Steve or white Steve. Although in our America it might well be electrician Steve and schoolteacher Steve.

Our America is a pretty nice place, Barry. It's too bad that when you come through our America, like when you dropped into Joplin after the tornado, you were too busy holding your chin up, just so, that you didn't notice the people. Those are good people, Barry, as good as you. Most of them know how to do things that you never had to learn. Of course they were already a community so an organizer wasn't any use to them.

Barry, the next time you are flying hither and yon to fundraisers, do us a favor. Look out the window of that great big, taxpayer funded jet and notice how damned big this country is. Notice, please, how far apart we live. And then, the next time Joe Biden starts babbling about high speed rail, slap him. America needs rail, Barry, and we need to spend some money on it. I suspect that private money would do better than public money but we can argue about that later. The rail we need is for freight, Barry. A couple of locomotives takes a lot of trucks off the highways which would be good for the environment. Or, at least cut down on traffic.

Passenger rail? Barry we are not Europeans. Rail only works for a few of us, unlike Europe where so many people live on top of each other. Rail works fine in the east, maybe. It works for Joe Biden because he works on a predictable schedule and, to tell the truth, nobody has really given a damn if Joe shows up for work or not. And nobody really has for a few decades now. The rest of us are spread out. We also have work schedules that are unpredictable. I've probably worked thousands of "extra" hours over the years, phone calls of "can you come in a couple hours early, Joe hurt himself" and Peter, can you stay over awhile and finish this today? Yeah, Barry, that high speed rail will work fine, if you really want to kill the country.

Well, I'm a little busy, Barry, no time for golf. I do hope that you remember, later, that you, yourself injected your daughters into the political process. I'm pretty sure that my side will treat your daughters better than your side has treated the Palin children. Still, no matter what, it was you, Barry, that brought them into the game. Please do not go around crying tears the size of horse turds if someone mentions them. Oh, and Barrry, tell Michelle to raise her daughters and leave our kids alone. Americans have been raising children for a while now, dozens of generations, without Michelle's help.

Bye, now, Peter