Matt- I'll save the sadness at your decision because good Republicans are hard to find, and we need you.

But I do have to say that, fundamentally, I think Bush is flawed in the very areas that you
think are his best attributes. It is Bush, to me, who is unwilling to address the cause of terror, and in your own words, someone we therefore cannot afford to elect.

Name one mistake he is asked, and he cannot not name one. It is this willful denial, ignorance of the world around us, which I see destroying America in the long haul...and I don't care if Bush is encapsulating himself in a bubble of like-minded willfully ignorant advisors because he is stupid, or because he is ideologically driven, the end results are what matter.

As long as we are fighting a war against "terror," that is, not against "terrorists" or "terror-states," then we are fighting a war against an ideology. I for one think that it is probably a just and right war; the ideology of hatred and the ideology of terrorism should be battled on every corner of the earth. But I don't think anyone not in willful denial of the facts can believe that any ideology can be stamped out by dropping bombs or imposing occupations. We find confirmation of this daily...terrorism increases the longer we are in Iraq. Every father we kill (granted, who was trying to kill our soldiers who were just defending themselves) still has five kids, two of whom will stand in to replace him. I don't think John Kerry has much of a better plan to address this fundamental flaw of the war on terror than GW does, but at least John Kerry can admit the flaw is there. As long as our commander in chief and his appointed leaders in this war cannot see the truth of what is happening, we'll never win this war or any other, the war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on poverty.

Eventually, with Bush's blind ideology, the exact ideology that one of my favorite leaders of all-time, LBJ, also gave himself over to, we will be left pondering the same question: "how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

posted by john owens-ream   [7:50 AM]

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