Dear Senator Webb and Senator Warner:
Gentlemen, you rock! You have made me proud, and you have brought honor and dignity back to the Commonwealth in a week in which our Teabagger Attorney General -- with the quiet acquiescence of our equally retrograde Governor -- has sought to turn serious constitutional jurisprudence into a laughably transparent partisan stunt. I said some bad things about you, when it appeared you might disappoint. I take it all back and humbly beg your forgiveness.
Here is what I said, both in e-mails to each of your offices and in a diary here on the Big Orange:
Senator, as a constituent and a (perhaps erstwhile) supporter, my question to you is quite simple: when are you going to stop being the senior Senator from Sallie Mae and start representing the people of Virginia. I should not have to expect, much less demand, that you support the current Congressional effort to reform the federal student loan origination system to cut out the extraneous middlemen and save taxpayers an estimated $80 billion over ten years. I refer, of course, to SAFRA - the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act - the bill on which you have joined cause with the GOP obstructionists to undermine and to ultimately champion the cause of special interests over what is obviously best for the country and for Virginia. I would like to be able to vote for you again in 2012, Senator, so please do not make the mistake of some of your colleagues and take for granted the support of democratic voters.
Well, Jim and Mark (I hope you don't mind my using the familiar form of address, I just feel close to you right now) you certainly shut me up. Now I don't expect either of you to be as progressive as I am, that is not really the makeup of your constituency. But when crunch time came, and the choice was to do what was inarguably best for all the country, or protect a powerful and wealthy special interest, you both stood with the people. I am proud of you, and proud to be a Virginian.
Thank you Senator Webb. Thank you Senator Warner. You had me at "yea".
Signed,
NVB
Arlington, VIRGINIA
p.s.: Eric Cantor is a punk. Tom Perriello also rocks!