In response to Ron Marshall's letter of Dec. 19, Jim McDermott is not why Congress has a lower approval rating than President Bush.

The reason Congress has such a low approval rating is because of their refusal to do what they were given a mandate to do in November of 2006, and that is to end the illegal occupation of Iraq. Rep McDermott is one of a handful of Democrats, which include Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who have from the start been against the invasion.

Rep. McDermott and Kucinich also favor a single payer health care system to fix our catastrophic health care crisis, and they want to withdraw from North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade agreements which have exported good paying American jobs and exploited the world's poor for private profits.

Blame for the low approval rating can be placed however on the cowardly leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, each of whom for whatever reason refuse to confront President Bush and his disastrous excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq.

Chris Anderson

Fauntleroy