Politics, Translated

It's election season. We can tell because we're all getting lots of mail. I thought I'd offer a handy dandy translation of part of a piece that I received from Representative Dave Reichert (R-WA).

OFFICIAL BUSINESS
This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.

Translation: I'm the incumbent, so I get to use your tax dollars to help my re-election campaign.

Dear Friend,

Dear Voter,

Knowing of your interest in children's health care, I wanted to let you know ...

I actually know nothing about your interests and I've ignored the letters you've sent me criticizing my votes. But, by saying that, I get to claim this is official business. I figure everybody thinks children's health care is important. If you concentrate on that, you won't notice that I'm against birth control and am 100% in favor of the Iraq War, and maybe you'll vote to re-elect me.

... that a measure I helped introduce ...

This bill had 229 co-sponsors, representing more than half the House. I'm in there somewhere. It passed by 416 to 0 (with 17 missed votes) so you can tell it was a controversial bill. See how I'm working hard for you.

... to fight childhood cancer recently passed the house.

Everybody hates cancer and especially childhood cancer but only the Republican party is actually trying to do something about it.

Children's health care is one of my top legislative priorities. You may be pleased to know that I am the founder of the Congressional Children's Health Care Caucus...

Before I got to Congress, nobody cared about children's health care. Of course, I founded a caucus to do something about it. It doesn't appear to have any members or hold meetings and gets a grand total of seven (7!) hits on Google, so you can tell just how influential it is.

Know that I remain unwavering in my committment to finding treatments and cures for childhood diseases, covering the uninsured, and expanding access to the preventive care that will allow our kids to lead longer, healthier lives.

Only Republicans care about these important issues. Those evil Democrats don't (especially Darcy Burner, my opponent in the fall). I'm all for children's health care, unless it's the SCHIP bill that would have funded healthcare for the underprivileged, or stem cell research. I even voted in favor of a stem cell research bill that I initially tried to block, after it was clear that it was going to pass anyway -- and that Bush was going to veto it.