As I write this, I am imagining the way differing Senators of opposing political parties speak so warmly of each other on the Senate floor. I expect politics holds the answer to my concerns below, which is why I frame it this way– with warmth.

My good friend Mr. Austin: Have you ever loaded the dice more than you did for this discussion? You never did in the ones about which I wrote earlier.

Let me see if I get this straight: in a description which RULES out categorically overall positive achievements in four stated areas–just one, for example, on veterans, judged much more mixed yet also with harshness by the Pulitzer Prize-winning organization PolitiFact shows this is still a debatable question (with more positive achievements than failures overall); in a press release which declares that failures will be “easy to find”– but small incremental achievements–no large ones, of course– “a daunting” task; an invitation which declares that Obama’s Farewell Address to the Nation will have to be short–and humble (which even his worst political opponents and all his supporters know he will not be)–because there has been little “change,” why would one even try to argue otherwise with facts and analysis? Everything to lose.

Perhaps the esteemed Mr Austin wanted to goad all who attend into a vigorous “debate”—such as we had, literally, when we reenacted the arguments for and against John Brown’s actions–if so, I salute him–but his words do not come close to that option.

Since there will be no way by the self-described buried roles to argue an overall perspective,–who is the President in this role-playing, the Honorable Mr. Austin?– even tentatively with qualifications, I will simply assert a counter opinion. The President who twice won electoral victories with margins higher than any President since 1956; a President whose popularity now if translated into votes would be substantially higher than those victories; with a President called by a Nobel Prize winner “the most consequential of my lifetime,” —a judgment being seconded by some major writers and qualified (of course) by others including some Presidential historians with their first drafts of history.

I will not here present more facts and arguable reasons beyond this simple challenge to those dice. Never play when the House has loaded dice, dad taught me.

Group Leader Mike Austin, I believe you are on the wrong side of history. I believe those heavy dice drove you into a rut along the road to history.

I hope some of our colleagues will find ways to present a more fair and balanced glimpse into the future of History.

Sincerely,

Mark Kohut

Shepherdstown