On Mayor Bloomberg and The Republican National Convention

By Max S. Gordon

(This essay was originally published on September 10, 2004 as
“An Open Letter to Paul Wellstone”. It was written in response to the arrests made during the Republican National Convention in New York City)

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Senator Wellstone: I will not go on about the curious timing of your death. People are very impatient with conspiracy theories these days, even when past theories have revealed conspiracies. Still, I read with weary cynicism that you spoke to a meeting of war veterans in Willmar, Minnesota in October 2002 and told them that Dick Cheney said to you, “If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush Administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be ramifications for you and the state of Minnesota.” Days later, you were dead.

You voted against Bush’s unilateral attack on Iraq, against Bush’s Homeland Security Department and in favor of an independent 9–11 investigation over Bush’s and Cheney’s objections. Your wife, who shared your courage and persuasiveness and would have continued your legacy, was dead also, preventing a repeat of John Ashcroft’s defeat by the wife of deceased air-crash victim Mel Carnahan. I am still working through my anger at you and your wife. (It’s always easier to be angry at the dead…