Mahanth S. Joishy is Editor of usindiamonitor.com.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and friends, please go somewhere to play so the adults can do their jobs.   We have enough real and difficult problems in America that our government, which unfortunately includes you, should be working on.  Your letter/attempt at character assassination of State Department Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin shows thinking that is completely decoupled from reality and astounding for its level of ignorance and xenophobia.  This letter should have been express-mailed to your therapists, not printed on U.S. Congress stationery.

Let’s call a spade a spade.  We all know what this slander against Huma Abedin is really about: racism and anti-Muslim sentiment against a brown female with a South Asian background for being successful in the US foreign policy establishment.  Shame on you.  I would take the background check conducted by the State Department over your ranting any day.  No, Abedin is not a national security threat or part of any conspiracy.   Quite the opposite, she is serving our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with distinction.  We somehow need you to “get right” with this fact.  Wrap your head around it.

It is YOU who present the bigger national security threat than poor Abedin.  YOU are the ones driving a wedge between folks using breathless language, riling up your bases shamelessly for the votes and to grab the headlines.  This is bush-league, sewage-drenched politics at its very worst.  You are the ones angering millions of Americans, Indians, Pakistanis, and Indo-Pakistani-Americans like Abedin with irresponsible rhetoric.  You are trying to pit your constituents against immigrants and vice versa.   Bravo to John McCain who has showed some spine by blasting his own party for their stupidity.

I have a response to your letter right here.  It may be one of the few things Indians and Pakistanis will ever agree on.

(I was going to make an Anthony Weiner joke here but felt it wasn’t in the spirit of the proceedings).

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7/18/12

Hon. Representatives Michele Bachmann, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Rooney, and Lynn Westmoreland

Congress of the United States, Washington DC, 20520

Dear Congresspeople:

Since you seem to not have gotten the memo, or the memo before that, or let’s say any memo since circa 1952, I’ve decided to write it out for you.

–  It is the year 2012 now.

– Brown women are allowed to get fancy titles in the workplace these days.

– Not every brown American is a national security threat, some sort of spy sent here to infiltrate the government.  Most of us love America just as much as you do, and all of us know more about America than you do.

– OMG.  We have cool stuff called religious freedom and freedom of expression in America, and it’s protected by the law, like in the Constitution, and stuff.

– You guys are all over the shop.  How does Palestine policy get into your letter?  You are starting to go after assorted types of brown people indiscriminately and desperately.

– I guess you aren’t a New Yorker like Abedin, or me.  New York and other big cities are these neat experiments in how people from all nations and faiths can share neighborhoods and raise families next to each other.  New Yorkers and Americans of all stripes will ALWAYS have the back of people like Abedin who are the target of discrimination.  Reminder: it’s 2012 now.  And New York is what all of America will look like in 2040.

– I hope the State Department’s Deputy Inspector General people, the Department of Justice people and the Homeland Security guys recycle your letter after they’re done laughing.  It’s better for the environment that way.

Respectfully Yours,

usindiamonitor.com