A Halloween Letter

Dear Bush Conservatives,

There’s an eerie specter among you—haunting your dreams and whispering assurances that he is real, that if you reach out you can touch him. Sometimes I see you try, and when your hands come up empty, a closed fist wrapped around nothing but the puff of smoke where the specter has been, you knit your brows and reassure each other, "Yes, he is real," though all evidence points to the contrary.

This specter makes you promises, and entices you to follow him, trust him, as he leads you ever deeper into the darkness. The form he assumes is nothing but an illusion, a deceit that conjures a mirage of strength and fortitude out of a thick fog that dissipates at any sign of challenge to its corporeality. You think it is clever defensive trickery, but fail to realize that is you being tricked. There is no substance; only mist.

Twice you have cast votes on this specter’s assurances and thinly fashioned figure, and as his image grows dimmer in the light of day, you continue to follow him deeper into the abyss where he determinedly leads you—the void where no sunlight can burn away his dew.

He makes you afraid of the things that go bump in the night, of monsters and ghouls, under your bed, in your closet, and in faraway places. He promises to protect you, but doesn’t tell you that he needs those summoned fiends to keep you scared and keep your eyes on him, believing in him, convinced he is real, ignorant to the reality that it is he of whom you should most be frightened.

I implore you to rub your eyes and see that the man you follow is nothing more than a figment of your imagination. He is not strong; he is not wise; he is not good. He is not your friend, he is not like you, and he does not have your best interests at heart. A specter, you see, has no heart.


The phantom in whom you’ve believed is not real. No treat; just a trick. It’s time to give up the ghost.

Happy Halloween,
Shakespeare’s Sister