Fossella Five to visit Fossella in jail

via Fossella Five;

Sally Jones and Thomas Good, members of the Fossella Five*, have released the following statement on the arrest of Congressman Vito Fossella for driving while intoxicated:

While we would never advocate placing a human being in a cage and calling that rehabilitation, we are aware that this is precisely what the great state of Virginia may do to Vito Fossella should he be convicted of driving while intoxicated.

There is one possibility for salvaging this regrettable state of affairs: both the congressman’s self described “error in judgment” and the Old Dominion’s punitive approach to treating alcohol abuse. We pledge that should Vito Fossella indeed be incarcerated for drunken driving, we will visit him in jail. We would do so in order to comfort the congressman in his hour of need and because this might be our only opportunity to meet with our representative — previously Mr. Fossella has been unavailable to meet with his constituents. We would gladly put time aside to meet with our fellow Staten Islander to discuss both his present difficulties and his positions on the Iraq War, health care, the Patriot Act, and immigration. We hope to see something positive come from this unfortunate situation and we want to support our congressman - we know what it is like to be incarcerated as we were arrested in the congressman’s office when we attempted to speak with him, a little over a year ago.

[*The Fossella Five were arrested in Rep. Vito Fossella’s Staten Island office on March 23, 2007, for reading the names of the (US) war dead aloud and demanding a meeting with their representative so they might discuss the position he holds on continuing the U.S. occupation of Iraq. ]