My pathetic attempt to actually persuade Bush to do something

Text of a letter I just sent:

President Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave,
Washington DC 20500

September 16, 2006

Re: Please do much more than you have so far to stop the genocide in Darfur

Dear President Bush:

This is the second time I have written you during your term as president, and the first time that I am going to grovel. I plead with you, I beg of you that you do much, much more than you have so far to stop an entirely foreseeable genocide in Darfur that could be only two weeks away.

Specifically, you must personally call Validimir Putin and Hu Jintao and tell them that their countries must use their influence to persuade Sudan to accept United Nations peacekeeper troops. Your giving a speech is insufficient; talking to diplomats is insufficient; you must talk directly to them yourself. Russia and China must understand that this is a priority for the United States, something that must be made more important to them than the moderate amounts of oil they can receive from Sudan’s dictator.

I am sorry that I cannot make this request as a supporter of your administration. It is because of the urgency and danger of the situation that I beg you to do this. All I can offer is that I own a blog with a small but real readership, backseatdriving.blogspot.com, and I intend to post this letter to the blog. Several hundred people will probably read it over the course of the month, and I will be certain to post any real response your administration provides. My blog has had very little positive to say about your work so far - this is your opportunity to change that, on an issue for which there is no reason for partisanship.

Darfur is your administration's Rwanda moment, and you have the advantage of considerable warning. You have the opportunity to go down in history as succeeding where the Clinton administration failed. Once again, I beg of you that you do this.

Sincerely,

Brian Schmidt
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Sent it via email, fax and post. While I doubt it makes that much of a difference, it's something you just have to do. Maybe they'll surprise me in a good way though, for once.

White House contact info here, more info on the Darfur campaign here.