One of my friends sent out a note saying he's ready to concede the terror/fear angle in this election. His young nephew quickly responded with a pasionate note:
"I refuse to concede defeat on the terrorism\national security issue. JK should ask Americans to hold this President accountable for fighting the wrong war. He should point out that an independent, bi-partisan commisssion who dedicated years and thousands of interviews to investigating 9/11 has found nothign linking the real enemy, Al-Qaeda to the fabricated one, Iraq. But still, Dick continues to suggest connections. The 9/11 commission's findings, not so much its recommendations, are vital to this election. We would not have invaded Iraq had we known there was no al-qaeda-iraq connection. But we were told otherwise. Accountability.
Secondly, we are less safe than we were before the Iraq War. Cite - "middle-of-the-road" Muslims (if you will) converting to fundamentalists because of their anger at American foreign policy in the post 9/11 world. They're are more people who want to kill you and I than before Iraq mess. Read - Struggle within Islam, this weeks TIME Mag.
These are the issues my generation cares most about. Job numbers affect us, economic numbers somewhat, but its our peers who are dying in a foreign land that hits home. We can not back down from the "who will protect us better debate." This President has put us in harm's way. JFK will work cooperatively with the International Community to regain the goodwill we squandered in the months following the attack. My peers are going to vote this election. And we can't lose these votes in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, ect..."
There’s nothing to concede nowhere, now-how, no way, niente! So the shrub got a convention bounce. He’s the president, he should get a bounce. The convention was a remarkable show. Everybody is talking about it. Karl Rove could walk through a sewage ditch and come out smelling like The Rose Garden. The only thing to concede is that we’re up against a very scary strategy. The campaign and the fringe will do anything. And they have all the money! Kerry is the comeback kid, the closer, back-to-the-wall motherfucker. He needs us doing anything we can.
This remains “event-driven.” Just look around you. Terrorists are shooting up the place. Over a million more people living in poverty (picture you, your wife, and two kids living on eighteen-thousand dollars a year). I hired a couple of guys from the golf course crew to cut up a tree storm Frances knocked down. Hired another crew to remove a tree (an errant car knocked it down) and replace it with a flowerbed. Had the golf course crew plant a rather large boxwood hedge. We’ve had painters in here, plumbers installing new fixtures; a carpenter came in and fixed a doorframe. In the last three-and-a-half years I’ve created more jobs than the president has.
