An Open Letter to Edward F. Feighan

You may not remember this, but in 1989, when I was a freshman in college, I interned in your Washington office. I did what most interns do -- answering constituent mail, researching simple issues and maybe tagging along to a committee meeting -- and so I didn't have much daily contact with you. But one afternoon, you asked me to accompany you to a committee meeting because the staff member who would ordinarily have gone was tied up on something else.

After the meeting, we got a late lunch in the Longworth Building cafeteria (your treat, which I thought was nice, since I was working gratis), and as we sat in the mostly-empty cafeteria, you asked me about my goals, my interests, all the things that you'd ask a young, idealistic college student. At one point, we got to talking about campaigning, and you commented on how it had gotten to be impossible to govern in this country because anything unpopular that you did could be distorted into an attack ad during the next campaign. You specifically raised the Willie Horton ad as an example of the unfair, inflammatory tactics that put politicians constantly on the defensive and unwilling to take any risks doing what needs to be done in this country.

Two things made a lasting impression on me: first, that a Congressman took the time to talk to me, a lowly intern who didn't even live in his district, and second, that you couched your objection not in terms of politics and politicians, but in terms of shortchanging the country. It sounded very wise. Being an impressionable 19-year-old, I was, well, impressed and thought I had found, if not a political hero, at least one of the good guys.

I realize now that you were just posturing and trying to sound high-minded to impress an intern. I'm just embarrased that I fell for it.

Now, it turns out that you're one of them -- the scorch-the-earth, circular-firing-squad old guard who fight to preserve the status quo, even when it's corrupt and broken. I have seen the ads that your group has put out, and although your website says you're talking about all of the "various candidates for President", the three ads on the site all seem to attack Howard Dean. Strange that all of the other candidates seem to have gotten a pass.

Congressman, I have watched each of the ads, and I have to say that I agree with your assessment 14 years ago -- attack ads do distort, inflame and scare voters and honest politicians into inaction. I just didn't think you'd stoop to sponsoring them. Shame on you.

So I thought you should know that I will be taking the official House photographer's picture of you with your arm around the interns off my wall at home, where it has proudly hung all these years. It probably won't mean anything to you, but it does to me. Part of me is disgusted, and part of me is just sad about how that works.

And by the way, just to prove that I won't be made inactive by fear or distortion, I have decided to donate $25 to the Dean campaign -- $19 in honor of how old I was then, and $6 to cover the cost of my lunch.

Very truly yours,
Daniel M. Labovitz