Email from Cooter

I'm writing to you folks on behalf of the guys down to Daryl's Bait Shop here in Lagniappe, Louisiana. We thought up some questions for you, seeing as how you are Public Servants and we are members of the Public.

We figure that the purpose of the 9/11 Commission and the reason you are spending millions of taxpayer dollars is to figure out how come those 19 Arab guys were able to hijack those planes and kill about 3000 Americans.

We want to know the true history of what happened, ain't that right? We didn't sign on for a Democratic or Republican history, did we? I mean what sense would that make? Even Armen Yazoo wouldn't likely subscribe to that kind of goings-on.

Not only do we want to know the history because we got a fondness for facts, for the truth, we want to know what went on so we can do our best to prevent these disasters from ever happening again, ain't that right?

Here in Lagniappe we don't have our heads in the ground and our feet in the air like onions, we are down to earth in the right way. We calculate that people on a 9/11 Commission got to be Democrat or Republican or Prohibitionist or Socialist Worker or Vegetarian—something.

Anyway, we wouldn't want Commissioners who are just nothing, got no ties, no loyalties, maybe live in a furnished room and claim to be above politics—which ain't that high, come to think on it. Might as well look to choose Aliens come here in a spaceship.

So, isn't it true that what is wanted for Commissioners is people with good character—that's obvious, ain't it?—who are smart, too, and can tell a hawk from a handsaw when the wind is southerly, as the guys at Daryl's say? And isn't it important that they come to this investigation without they have their minds made up before they start?

But you, Mr. Richard Ben-Veniste, you don't seem to be interested in finding out facts and I would bet dollars to beignets you already made up your alleged mind.

When you were questioning Condoleezza Rice about that Presidential Daily Briefing, you asked her to read the title, the title only, when you could've read it yourself. Weren't you just trying to embarrass her, she being a Republican and you, Mr. R. Ben Veniste, being a Democrat?

Don't you consider that's a stupid trick, especially considering that in real life she is a Professor at Stanford University—that‘s John Elway's school and you know how smart a quarterback he was. Miz Rice prolly has you beat by 40 IQ points not to mention good Southern manners and skill at playing Classical piano and church piano, too, which we hear she does?

Me and Boudreau are guessing that you never have been to the Lagniappe Harvest Fair that is held every year. There is livestock judging and vegetable judging and judging for pies, gumbos, crawfish, and the like. Whoever is doing the judging ain't allowed to be judging his or her own stuff. He or she is assumed to have a stake in the outcome so he or she is disqualified. Because we can plainly see that wouldn't be fair to the competitors and the judge and would taint the prizes and awards.

From what we have read in the Lagniappe Courier-Bugle-Sun-Telegraph, it was you, Miz Gorelick, wrote the legal rules when you were Deputy AG. Those rules you wrote disallowed the FBI from searching the laptop of one of them Muslim terrorists the FBI suspicioned because he was in flight school but didn't want to learn take offs and landings.

The way us guys at Daryl's understand it, you figgered the FBI wasn't supposed to know what the CIA knew about this Muslim flyboy. If they'd known what the CIA knew and had searched his computer, odds are they would've uncorked the 9/11 plot. So, we are asking, shouldn't you be in front of the Commission testifying about your no-search rules, not sitting as Commissioner?

Me and Boudreau and the guys (except Herm Harrison who's been living with his sister Lureen in Memphis ever since his home here burned down to the wheels) have another question, too. (That ain't really true, about Herm's house burning down. We just threw it in as an optional extra to amuse you all.) Could you possibly investigate Richard Clarke who seemed to be using the Commission to plug his book?

What all this adds up to is you and Mr. R. Ben Veniste, shouldn't you excuse yourselves from being Commissioners? Wouldn't that be the honorable thing to do? So when you pass on and are knocking at Heaven's Gate and you can read the sign, No Lawyers Admitted, you could say, "Let us in, we did the right thing once. We resigned as 9/11 Commissioners."

OK. Please direct your answers to Trentino's Magazine whose proprietor, Trentino himself, has kindly agreed to publish them.

Here is the one I love:

E-mail to Candidate John F. Kerry

From James (Cooter) Thompson

Dear Senator Kerry:

I am Designated Letter Writer for the guys down to Daryl's Bait Shop here in Lagniappe, Louisiana. We have been shaking our heads over your stumbling campaign. It ain't so much we like you or your Party, but you are a fellow American, born in the U S of A, so we don't want you to disgrace yourself. Here are 10 helpful hints we have worked up for you. (More if you want them. Let us know.)

1 We know you served in Nam. You'd do yourself a favor if you didn't keep mentioning it every time someone pokes a microphone in your face. Geez, it was 35 years ago you did that for what was it, four months? Some of us Daryl's Bait Shop guys spent more time than that on chow lines.

2 Get your stories straight. Admit you threw your or someone's medals and/or ribbons over the Capitol fence in '71, and you went touring around with Jane Fonda, and you testified falsely to atrocities by US troops. You ought to say that was all a youthful mistake. We've made a few. We'll understand.

3 It's OK, you can talk French to French reporters if you want to, we don't mind. Smilin' Jack Boudreau can speak French, and we elected him Chief of the Lagniappe Volunteer Fire Company. We're not bigots. We call 'em as we see 'em, make up our minds.

4 Sen. Kerry, why aren't you touting your good luck in snaggin, not one, but two, rich wives? Here at Daryl's we often wonder what it would be like to have a really rich wife. We speculate just how big a bass boat we could buy, along with one of those new Dodge Hemi trucks to pull it to the crick. Smilin Jack always points out how it's his cousins, Marvin and Dickweed who appear in those Dodge Hemi commercials but still they can't afford one of their own. We chuckle how we could be fishin all day with nary a worry about where the money is coming from. You don't have to cook that ketchup, do you? Come on, show the world how lucky you are. We here in the South respect achievement and don't begrudge someone's good fortune even if he's a politician.

5 Me and Boudreau wonder why you aren't going to the wrasslin matches to get votes? We've seen videotape of you on the ski slopes. You got some good moves, looks like you already know how to take a fall. All us here (except Freddie Dobbs and Herm Harrison) are great fans of wrasslin. Not that we'd vote for you just because you was one. Armen Yazoo is a wrasslin maniac, but none of us would vote for him even if he was running only for dogcatcher. So you got to tread easy on showing you're Joe Sixpack who just happened to go to Swiss prep school and St. Paul's School and Yale College Skull & Bones. We'd see through that pose in about a minute and a half and mark you for a hypocritical windbag and general liar. You needn't go to the trouble of hanging a black velvet Elvis oil painting in any of your living rooms. Weren't none of us recently fell off a turnip truck.

6 Tell us something you're for. We already know what you're against.

7 We ain't all that impressed with the UN and we don't know why you keep bowing in its direction, promising you will go there first thing if you are elected President of this country. Is there anything the UN has ever done right? Didn't they make a royal mess of that Iraq oil-for-food program, millions skimmed off just happened to land in their personal bank accounts? Seems to us they spend around 98 percent of their time passing resolutions that don't add up to a hill of beans.

8 If you're for lower gasoline prices in the morning, don't be proposing a 50 cents a gallon tax boost on gasoline in the afternoon. Saying one thing in Shreveport and the opposite in Baton Rouge don't inspire us with confidence with you as President. Maybe you should stay in the Senate where you got 99 other guys to share the responsibility with.

9 We got indoor privies, color TV, cell phones, and computers. Give us some credit for brains and understanding. We know economic conditions are good and getting better. Your telling us we're miserable, deluded fools just won't fly. And it gives us the eerie feeling that you're hoping for a relapse into recession to help your electoral chances.

10 You have beaten all your Democratic opponents in all the primaries and caucuses held so far. Yet you seem out of touch with your party and with America. Maybe you've been a pol too long, been campaigning too long and you need a break before the Convention. We all think the best thing you can do is haul out your Harley, put TeRAYza on the pillion and take off for the Sturgis South Dakota Bike Rally. Meet the folks. A few of us from Daryl's will be there. You don't have to get tattooed.

Sincerely,

Cooter

(with the considerable assistance of J. Boudreau and B. Bass)

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