An Open Letter to the President
September 28, 2001
by Dave Conroy

Let me get the unpleasant part out of the way. I did not vote for you. There may be a scenario where I would vote for you but I can't figure it out. I also believe that you are President only because of a stolen election. None of that matters now. You are our President. We need to be able to trust you.

That is the problem. You have surrounded yourself with a trio of liars. Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, and Ari Fleischer have no credibility. Story after story has emanated from your White House and have turned out not to be true.

You'd only been there a few days and we heard lurid tales of destruction by the previous occupants. Ari Fleischer assured us that a log of the destuction was being kept. It turns out there was no log, and no destruction.

Then there was the tax debate. Over and over it was claimed that the reason the working poor should not get any money is that they don't pay taxes. It turned out that the money being used for the rebate was Social Security taxes that the working poor do indeed pay.

Now there is the whole Air Force One and White House flap. Your handlers claimed that they were both threatened. Now we know they weren't. Another lie.

In between we had the invitation for the Democratic leaders that never came. We had the threats against reporters that dared to question any of this.

You need to change this. You need to fire these people. We need to be able to trust you. When you attack Bin Laden, as I hope you will, we need to trust that you have the evidence. We need to trust that the people who you say you are using you actually are. I know that at times you are going to have to protect sources. I know that at times you are going to have to be evasive and vague.

In order for us to trust you we need to trust your spokespeople. You need new ones. You need to list every lie they told in your name. You need to admit to those that you asked them to tell. You need to hire trustworthy professionals that can be believed.

Before the attack, we could live with a lying cabal in the White House. We can't now. To be brutally honest it will take a while even with new spokesman before I believe you. Your track record is bad.

The saddest part of this is that the lies were stupid and unneccessary. The press was already making Clinton out to be Satan without the White House trashing stories. The Democrats sold out on tax cuts anyhow. The country would have understood why you were in Nebraska on the 11th.

These reflexive lies are now coming home to roost.

To prosecute this vital war you need the trust of patriotic liberals like me. You do not have it. Fire the duplicitous three and let the truth set us free. We are owed that. You are an accidental President at best. We deserve better.

I close with a prayer that ought to be familiar to you. "God grant me the accept the things I can not change, the courage to change those I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." You can not change the lies told in your name. You can change who speaks for you. May you find the courage to do so.