Hate Mail Makes Me Feel Funny In My Pants: Special Conservative Republican Edition

One of the very strange things that's happened over the course of the last few years that I've been writing these Burn Notice books is the number of emails I get from people telling me my Burn Notice books have a political agenda they don't like, which to me is like saying, "The popcorn I'm eating has a political agenda I don't like." Yesterday, for instance, I received this email:

I'm sick and tired of how you portray Republicans in your Burn Notice books. I've read all five of them and each time there's some evil thing you ascribe to Republicans. I won't read another of your Burn Notice books and I'm going to write a letter of complaint to Matt Nix and my cable service.

I didn't have the heart to tell the person that I wouldn't be writing anymore Burn Notice books (nor point out that after having read 5 of them, he was probably just as guilty for the way he felt as I was for, presumably, writing them). Nor did I have the heart to tell him that writing, you know, Comcast, wasn't going to really help him out, either. However, since I had some free time yesterday, I wrote the gentleman back with a question:

I'm sorry to hear that. But I'm curious: what exactly are the evil things I've ascribed to Republicans in my latest book?

A few hours later, the gentleman responded with a list, all from my current book The Bad Beat:

1. You said that if Republicans were still in office Brent [a character in the book] would be water boarded.

2. You wrote that a slimey guy had Republican hair.

3. You said that Dick Cheney surrounded himself with dumb people who'd take the fall for him.

4. You said people who shop at Wal-Mart are Republicans.

Your liberal bias is showing, Mr. Goldberg.

I thought it was nice he called me Mr. Goldberg, it should be noted. Most of the people who write the letters to me just call me asshole. But anyway...I looked at the list and couldn't remember any of those sections, apart from the guy with Republican hair, because I knew someone would write me a letter about that. But let's be honest: Republican politicians have a certain haircut. To wit: 

So, with that as an established, shall we say look, it seemed like a nice description. I went and looked up the other bits and sure enough I'd written something along those basic lines in the book, so I wrote back the gentleman with a few more questions:

That's a very succinct list of liberal biases. So, just so I'm clear: Did people get waterboarded during the last Republican administration? I seem to recall it was a thing. Particularly, say, people with terrorist ties? [The section in question is about someone who has information the government might want, not to give out any spoilers.] Are you of the belief that Dick Cheney surrounded himself with smart people who took the fall for him? Are you aware that Wal-Mart is, well, kinda known for giving a lot of money to conservative causes? So, with all that being said, I'm not sure how I've cast Republicans in an evil light. I'm just relating topical anecdotes. I mean...all the bad guys are ex-KGB in this book. So by your reasoning, as a commie liberal, they'd have come off much better for my writng them.

The response came just a few minutes later. It was to the point, I'll say that:

You need to learn the word allegedly. 

 

 

Comments

[Danny Barer]

Actually, I think your biases against Russian tea rooms, goth RAs, and crazy gambler fathers come across pretty strongly in THE BAD BEAT.