My Letter to Zach Wamp
Dear Congressman Wamp,

Please provide assistance to this fellow Tennessean. I'm struggling to find the correct adjective for my next blog post to describe your recent vote to keep the Patriot Act intact, library snooping and all. I know "flip-flopper" seems to be the parlance of the day, and since you did change your vote from yes to no in the time it took the vote to open and close, that would seem to fit the bill. "Capricious" and "indecisive" or the more old-school "wishy-washy" have been on my list too.

However, your about-face came after being strong-armed by Republican leadership, who kept the vote open an extra half-hour or so in search of potential vote-switchers (why do you think they picked you by the way?). So I'm leaning toward the more telling "spineless," which has a little more appropriate bite to it than the generic "soft," "malleable," "wimpy," or "irresolute," all of which I have considered. (I noticed by the way that you were named as one of the "spineless twelve" by patriotwatch.org--congratulations! I don't remember you ever getting much press for being a Congressman before!)

But now I have read your defense, in which you say you switched (same as flopped!) after being educated--while the vote was held open--about the way terrorists slyly communicate via public library computers. So I'd like to create more of a sense of "gullible," "credulous," or how about "born yesterday" to add a little flair? I notice the Seattle Post picked "gullible" for you, so I may be on the right track.

Was that really the first you had heard about the use of public computers for terrorist communication? My instinct is that the proper adjective for you lies in the answer to that question. Depending, it may be "duplicitous" or on the other side is something along the lines of "oblivious." (is "ill-read" a word?).

Thanks for any assistance,
Don Byrd