Screaming at Laura Bush

Dear Mrs. Bush,

I fully expect this letter to never be seen by you. However, I am a teacher and one of the more essential lessons I try to teach my students is to always ask for what they want. I work with children who come from families very different from yours or mine. It is not always easy for them to ask for anything.

And although I am a teacher, in my heart I am really an actor. I worked professionally for years but the passion in the pursuit has dimmed for me since my husband and I left New York City after September 11th.

The reason I come to write to you is that I am currently acting in a late night political comedy about the times we live in and I happen to be playing you. It’s possible that I only got the role because my husband is a good impressionist and is playing your husband. It tickles me that I am riding my husband’s coattails into the role of a first lady. “Behind every great man ... “

So, in researching my role, I have been trying to understand you. I’ve read some short biographies and scanned the web for any info I can find. I’ve found out that we share some things in common. It’s possible that we attended the same Girl Scout camp in West Texas. I don’t remember the name of the one I attended but I grew up in San Angelo. We also both call all sodas “cokes,” which I picked up on in one book about you.. Little things like that, we have in common. Other than little idiosyncracies and the same landscaped memories we share there’s probably not too much. I was a fourth generation military brat. My grandparents were dirt poor. Really. My grandfather grew up the son of evangelical ministers in the Stockyards of Ft. Worth and had to drop out of school to join the Army simply for the clothing they provided. And although we didn’t have money, I had friends who were debutantes and junior leaguers. I also worked at the yacht club in high school so I, too, was attracted to those handsome, leisure class boys.

What I would like to ask you is for you to help me understand: what makes you tick? I just can’t grasp it. I don’t understand how you can live with yourself. You were a teacher. You must have seen how important education is to each and every child, how innocent they are in the directions their lives take. How can you let the safety net that is our social contract, our government, our infrastructure and our investment in the future in the form of taxes just fall away? My husband thinks that your husband just doesn’t understand what it’s like to live without a safety net so he doesn’t realize the value of it. But you seem different.

This is just one area where you baffle me. Tonight on PBS you were quoted speaking about our responsibility for the fate of Afghani women after our nation’s actions there. You spend every day with a man who could change the course of history for so many, undo so much harm and it appears that you do nothing. Again, I ask myself, how does she live with herself?

As I said, I don’t expect you to read this. But if by some strange twist of fate you do, please answer me. As an actor I am trained to believe that you can’t play a villain without understanding their motives. And I don’t see you as a villain. You seem so intelligent and strong. I just want to understand how you can live with yourself.

Sincerely,


SM