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This has had to be the most bewildering election year in memory. It is so, because I cannot understand how ANY true American could even consider supporting George W. Bush. So, if there are any republicans out there reading this site, I have some questions. I welcome all answers, except those given by my particularly ignorant little brother Mike.
Doesn't it bother you that Bush has not come clean about his past history? After all, the standards that we ask of the top leader in the world should warrant a full accounting of a candidate's life prior to holding office. Bush has admitted to past indiscretions, yet he has not been forthright in disclosing any problems he may have had with alcohol, marijuana and cocaine abuse. There is plenty of speculation that he continued chemical abuse into his thirties. Contradictory statements by the president himself have fueled even more speculation. Does this not bother republican voters? Since he is running for a second term, don't you feel these questions should be answered, instead of the White House giving cryptic and carefully phrased cagey answers? Why doesn't he answer the drug abuse questions straight out and put the matter to rest? Don't you believe that such a matter goes to the heart of the character of a candidate? You seemed like you cared about such matters when Bill Clinton ran for office in 1992, and again in 1996. Are these matters not important to you anymore?
There are also many questions about the president's National Guard service. Discrepencies abound on this particular issue. Don't they raise serious questions in your minds? How can you so easily dismiss them? Don't they matter to you? They go directly to the question of truthfulness, character and leadership - all qualities that we need in the top political job in our country. Once again, the president has been aggravatingly vague, not settling the issue once and for all. He clearly didn't want to go to Viet Nam. I can't blame him for that. I wouldn't have wished that nightmare on anyone. President Clinton did everything he could, so as not to go. But, if you join the National Guard you DO have an obligation to follow through on the commitments that the military expects of you. It doesn't matter who you are, you don't have the right to tell the Guard that you are leaving Texas to go to Alabama to work on a politicians campaign. You don't have the right to go outside of military chain of command to affect such a change. And you definitely do not have the right to simply blow off your duties, disobeying direct orders to take mandatory physicals and not show your face for six months or longer. To date there is not one single prson who can remember seing the president do ANY guard service down in Alabama. The president has had plenty of opportunities to unearth evidence that would prove contrary to these allegations, but curiously he hasn't been able to. Why is that? Doesn't this bother you? If I were president, and I faced such damning allegations I would move heaven and earth to clear my name. That is, unless I had a whole lot to hide from the public. How can you rationally explain away this sordid mess? Shouldn't it bother you that Bush claimed repeatedly that he recieved no preferential treatment in joining the "champaign unit" of the Texas Air National Guard, but now we have evidence that the then Secretary of the State of Texas pulled strings to get Bush in there? And doesn't it bother you in the least bit that Bush claimed he completed his service in Boston, yet absolutely no records exist to back his assertions up? If these questions don't bother you and give you cause for concern, then why not?
How do you feel about about the president filling his cabinet and other important government posts not with policy makers, but industry executives who do not represent the interests of the people? Over the course of almost four years now these people have proven that they serve only their interests. These are the people who control the very industries that are pulling your jobs out from under your feet and shipping them overseas as fast as they possibly can. These same insiders who run the various departments of the government have served their respective industries well, rolling back more than 400 environmental laws and regulations with disastrous results. They have managed to gut the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, allowing polluters to pollute at will with no consequence. Don't these actions bother you? Aren't you concerned about the hemmoraging of our good paying jobs overseas? Do you not care about the quality of air you breath, the quality of the water you drink and the preservation of wilderness and wildlife? These are serious problems that have been created by the Bush administration. Are these the type of actions and job performance that you feel comfortable in rewarding another four years of Bush leadership for? Is this the direction you feel the country should be going in? If so, can you reasonably explain why? I am not making false allegations here. This is a black and white record that is available for anyone who is interested to investigate and see for themselves. Our government HAS been co-opted by big business executives who don't have our best interests at heart.
How do you feel about war? Do you like it? I don't. I am not so much a dove. But when my country declares war, I want to be sure that it is for the most compelling of reasons. I want to be sure that the cause is a just one. I was in full agreement when the president sent troops to Afghanistan after 9/11. It was a just and reasonable action. That was, after all where the enemies who attacked us came from. We had every right and reason to go there and do away with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But now we are in Iraq. A place we have absolutely no business being in. Yes, you may say that Saddam Hussein was a very bad man. But he had nothing to do with our being attacked on 9/11. What's worse, we had no business pulling most of our resources from Afghanistan to invade Iraq, in order to cause a regime change. There were no terrorist training camps in Iraq. In fact Hussein would not allow terrorists in his country. He wanted to control Iraq with an iron fist. He and the terrorists in Afghanistan were enemies. Doesn't all of this make you uncomfortable in your support of our current war? If not, then why? What kind of responsible leadership is this? Why should we reward these actions by our president with another four years? Because of our shift in focus in the war on terror, Afghanistan is now in full control again by the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Do we need war, any war, no matter how wrong to make us feel good about ourselves as a nation? I sincerely hope not. The president has given at least a half-dozen changing reasons for justifying our invasion of Iraq, but he has never been able to tie the terror acts of 9/11 to Iraq. Should he so cavalierly commit hundreds of billions of dollars and so far one thousand soliers lives to such a catastrophic and undeserving cause? Also, is it responsible leadership on the part of the president to wage a war without a plan to win the peace? Is it responsible to ignore military advice, ans well as the advice of intelligence agencies in his zeal to invade Iraq? We demand responsibility and thoughfulness from our leaders. We did not recieve it on this issue of war. Are you comfortable with that? I don't see how you can be. If we are truly to feel safe at home, we need money for first responders. We need money for rail infrastructure safety. We need money to create and implement plans to secure nuclear power and chemical facilities. We need money for more Border Patrol agents. We need money for port security and to secure water treatment facilities throughout the country. But we don't have the money for such impotant matters because we are spending more than 200 billion dollars to democratize Iraq. We don't have the money for these things because the president felt it was more important to give tax cuts to Americans. Not a very good trade-off in my opinion. Do you feel that it is responsible leadership to shortchange our safety at home for the reasons I outlined? Is there anything you can point to that makes you feel he has done a good job fighting terrorism? Anything at all that cannot be refuted by fact?
Just a few final questions. Do you support Bush because he seems "folksy?" Because he seems like a regular guy? Because you are Republican and he is the Republican candidate, and there is no way you would consider voting for a Democrat, or you can't just stay home and not vote? Do you vote with your heart and not with your head? Do you not pay attention to politics, but are influenced by "feel good sounding jingoistic wrap yourself up in the flag" rhetoric? In short, just exactly why are you voting for this man, and what is the evidence that back up your reasoning for wanting to reward him with another four years. I really want to know.
Joe Fields
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