In response to today's piece in the Washington Post, Bradley Blakeman writes: “Andy Shallal supports “revolutionaries” yet he turned tail and ran to America when the brutal dictator Sadaam Hussein took power in his home country. Did he stand and fight for freedom? Did he seek revolution? Nope, he ran away. He came to a country that celebrates freedom and democracy and took up residence only to trash and dishonor the country that gave him opportunity."

Tell Bradley Blakeman how YOU feel by commenting below and tell Andy Shallal how YOU feel by emailing him at:

http://busboysandpoets.com/contact.php

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It takes a visage to spoil a meal

On this, Bradley Blakeman and Andy Shallal can agree: The pizza at Busboys and Poets is pretty great.

That's where it ends.

Blakeman was enjoying the pizza at the Shirlington outpost of Shallal's small restaurant empire last weekend when he happened to look around at the decor. There, amid images of MLK Jr., Gandhi and President Obama, he saw a silk-screen poster of Che Guevara and Vladimir Lenin. He decided to write a letter.

Blakeman is a GOP consultant and occasional pundit who worked in George W. Bush's White House. Shallal is an Iraqi immigrant and liberal activist who established Busboys and Poets (there are two others, both in D.C.) as a sort of lefty clubhouse -- a popular gathering place for Democratic causes and fundraisers.

Blakeman, who says he didn't know the restaurant's leanings, e-mailed Shallal to express disgust over the poster of communist revolutionaries, "two of history's most notorious and infamous figures who dedicated their lives to bringing misery and death to thousands of their political enemies," and urged Shallal to remove them: "They are offensive and inappropriate."

Shallal e-mailed back: Guevara and Lenin "represent the struggles of working people. . . . They fought against the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few." He forwarded the e-mails to us.

Click here to read more.

By The Reliable Source, Washington Post, November 9, 2009 Style Section