JEB'S PRIORITIES ARE IN ORDER

Dear Gov. Bush:

With another one of those awful elections right around the corner, I
wish we could just swear you in for an automatic second term without
having to go through that demoralizing balloting process again. I
mean, everybody knows you're gonna win anyway, and nothing good can
come from turning it over to bean-counting nerds.

Florida's gonna wind up a laughing stock again on Leno and Letterman,
and it'll give all these cackling gasbags a forum for revisiting the
Y2K voting disaster. They'll be ranting a blue streak about cronyism,
about how ChoicePoint/Database Technologies (DBT) was awarded a $2.3
million, no-competitive-bidding contract to screen voter-registration
rolls from a company that had previously performed the task for
$5,700. Oh, and they'll go on and on about Jim Crow in cyberspace,
about how DBT used race as one of its criteria to scrub 57,700 felons
from its voter registration roles, and they'll talk about how most of
them weren't felons at all.

They won't give you any credit for setting things straight after 2,834
felons who'd had their civil rights restored in other states were
illegally barred from voting in Florida in 2000. Like how, in February
2001, after brother George won Florida by 537 votes, your Office of
Executive Clemency announced these folks would no longer have to
complete 15-page application forms.

Sorry -- I'm digressing. What I wanted to tell you was how much I love
that campaign ad of yours, the one where you responded so quickly to a
woman who wanted a stoplight posted at a dangerous intersection for
the neighborhood schoolkids. It made me feel as if I'm not just
another faceless, unempowered number anymore. So I was wondering if
you could put a new sidewalk on Dusseldorf Avenue in Palm Bay, so
mothers can push their baby strollers in safety. Also, there's a woman
at work who can't get Rockledge to put more fill dirt in her back
yard, which she's losing to erosion (call me and I'll get you her
number). And you don't have to recover every last one of those 500
kids who've vanished under DCF care -- just find Rilya Wilson to get
the media off your back.

Another reason you should skip the campaign and go straight to the
swearing-in ceremonies is because the media has no respect for the
privacy of family matters, like the struggles of your daughter,
Noelle, with drug addiction. Even though people like Satellite Beach
resident and drug-law reform advocate Harold Koenig are in your
corner. "I'm delighted with how she's being treated. She has a
disease, and this is a showcase for what we'd like to see for
everyone, regardless of racial, social or economic status," says
Koenig, whose daughter has battled addiction with an entirely
different response from the system. "They didn't confiscate (Noelle's)
car, they didn't use her as a confidential informant, and they didn't
allow traffickers to bail her out of jail for sex."

There's a common misperception of a double standard for the families
of privilege, which we know isn't true. Like, when John Ashcroft was
Missouri's zero-tolerance chief exec in 1992, and his nephew, Alex,
got busted for 61 marijuana plants in his basement. Growing 50 heads
of weed usually invites federal prosecution and prison time, but Alex
faced only state charges, and he got off with probation. What's
important is, there's no evidence Uncle John intervened in any way!

My advice, Gov. Bush: Stay the course on the drug wars, and don't be
swayed by propaganda from elitists like The New England Journal of
Medicine, which called for the legalization of medical marijuana in
1997. Alleviating pain and suffering isn't the issue. Last year, for
the first time in recorded history, Florida's medical examiner records
indicated more people suffered fatal overdoses from abusing
prescription painkillers than from illegal drugs. We all know medical
marijuana is an evolutionary step on the road to sanctioning
recreational pot. And even though there hasn't been a single documented
case of anyone overdosing to death on dope, that doesn't mean it can't
happen some day. After all, nobody foresaw suicide jetliners crashing
into the World Trade Center, either.

Do your best to keep the right-to-treatment referendum off the ballot
in 2004. Never mind troublemakers like Stephen Heath of the Drug
Policy Forum of Florida, who takes cheap shots like, "It would give
everyone the same access to treatment that Noelle has. Even though, as
rich as (Bush) is, I don't know why she's being treated at taxpayer
expense."

Let's keep Florida's prisons among the most populous in the United
States. Sure, we're in a recession, but principle has no price tag.
Keep telling it like it is with those campaign ads. Need another
witness? Sign me up.