by Paul Vitello
September 14, 2004
To: John Kerry
From: A voter
Re: Your campaign
<SNIP>
If you want to win, stop acting like the leader of the schoolyard victims. There is no dean of discipline watching from his window. It's just us down here. We're all getting whupped to hell by your ineptness. Stare these bullies down. Start telling the truth.
You are running a campaign that ignores the two central facts of your opponent's record.
Fact 1: Before 9/11, your opponent dropped the ball. The 9/11 Commission report makes this clear. Why not say so? The national security adviser, the attorney general, the vice president, the Defense secretary and most of all, the president himself, ignored the urgent warnings of the outgoing administration in early 2001 about al-Qaida's imminent plans for an attack inside the U.S. They ignored the warnings of their own Cassandra, Richard Clarke. They didn't get it. We all paid the price. Say it.
Fact 2: After 9/11, your opponent dropped the ball. The 9/11 Commission makes this clear. Congressional investigators make it clear. One of them, Doug Bereuter, the Nebraska Republican who was vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee last year, said in a recent letter to his constituents, referring to the war in Iraq: "I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action." Most Americans agree with him. Admit your own mistake in having supported this war. <SNIP> Don't let the other side continue making stuff up on these counts. <SNIP> They can't admit their mistake any more. But you can. The 1,000 deaths of servicemen and women in Iraq are 1,000 deaths too many already. Remember your own best line from 1971: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? That question still applies. Start saving lives - and save your campaign in the process.
When they throw garbage at you, please throw it back. It is too late to do much anymore about the Swift Boat ambush, which you ignored too long. But there is smelly stuff thrown your way every day. Just last week, for example, your opponent said, incredibly, that your plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest would hurt the middle class because "real rich people figure out how to dodge taxes." He said the tax burden would trickle down to the less wealthy, in other words.
How could you let such a teachable moment pass? Why weren't you pointing out how truly this reflects your opponent's coddling of the rich; how his IRS has actually reduced audits of the wealthiest taxpayers and concentrated instead on middle-income earners?
Why didn't you say, "Mr. President, when you are back in Texas and I am president, the real rich - the super rich - will NOT BE ALLOWED to dodge their taxes, as you allow them to do today!" Instead, you said nothing. What is wrong with you?
<SNIP>
More at
http://www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-livit143967086sep14,0,1847495.column 
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