A long-winded letter to the editor that'll never get published.

In response to The Arizona Republic's editorial this morning, I wrote this:

It was with a mixture of amusement and horror that I read this morning's editorial calling for Pres. Bush's reelection. I'm sure you'll receive hundreds, if not thousands, of letters on both sides of the issue. Since I can find no brief way to argue the points in your editorial, I'm reasonably certain this response will be quickly set aside. But I'm writing it anyway; call it catharsis.

Now, I understand that as a Gannett newspaper, your editorial policy is in large part swayed by the policies of your corporate parent and that, in sum, is the biggest problem. Journalists are, by and large, careful and thoughtful people who do the best they can to present the news in as thorough and unbiased way as they can. But journalists do not hold the ultimate power in a newsroom. To be brief, corporatism, and corporate/conglomerate control of the media are stifling the truth and working to destroy intelligent discourse in America. This editorial makes it evident that its author (an individual or group) may not understand the truth either as reported in independent media or even in the pages of the Republic itself. Your interests appear to be those of corporate America and not of American, or Arizona, citizens themselves.

To the editorial itself ...

Your discussion of 'security moms' is laughable. The 'security mom' demographic is a population largely defined by, and ascribed charateristics by, the Republican Party and the Bush campaign. Analysis of this group by independent polling firms finds that, while they are concerned with the War on Terror(tm), it is not first in their minds. And while they rate Bush and stronger on this notion of security, they don't offer overall strong support for Bush. The whole notion of security moms seems, thus, to be a right-wing attempt to create, whole cloth, a constituency so that undecided women who fit the demographic, can feel they 'belong' and swing toward Bush. Your use of the term perpetuates the myth.

The next paragraph caused me some measure of confusion. It states at the end, 'Baghdad may not have been the fulcrum of terrorism before the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But it is now.' In other words, you are tacitly admitting that what John Kerry says is true, that this was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. And yet, you continue, Bush is the best person to win that war and win the peace. But if he messed up so badly to start with Iraq in the first place, how on earth do you seriously believe he can fix it?

Let's look at what he's done so far, and try to extrapolate onto the future. He invaded a country that was no threat, either imminently or in the forseeable future, to the United States or its neighbors, and whose citizens, while they surely harbored some ill will toward the United States (for its actions against them as well as for its refusal to offer promised support to revolutionaries after the first Gulf War), certainly were not a terrorist force. Bush's obsession with Iraq caused grave harm to the hunt for terrorists. And you agree that this war made Iraq fertile ground for terrorists, yet in his own speeches Bush denies all of this, saying merely that he 'wasn't happy' to find out there were no WMDs in Iraq.

Frankly, I WAS happy there were no WMDs in Iraq. Happy and relieved. Had he acted within the sensible parameters of the resolution authorizing him, conditionally, to use force in Iraq, the resolution in favor of which John Kerry voted, further weapons inspections would indeed have discovered this fact. There would be far fewer dead American military members. Those same soldiers, marines, airmen, etc., could instead have been finding and uprooting terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere.

This is a man who has proven his unwillingness to accept an inconvenient truth. Why do you believe he'll change that if reelected?

His administration contributed, both tacitly and specifically, to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Couple the confusion over the application of the Geneva Conventions with a military command structure that placed private mercenaries in charge of our military and you have a disaster. And yet, the administration carefully insulated itself from any responsibility for the inhumanity. They have blood on their hands and evil in their hearts. They, as you say, 'acted with dispatch to correct the awful malevolence,' but only to a point, which is to say, only as far as low-level poster-children for crimes against humanity, and denied any culpability. What of the culture of accountability Bush claimed they would bring to Washington?

The upshot of all of this is that Bush is now generally viewed by those in the crosshairs as a belligerent, power-mad warmonger. Rather than employing Iraqis to rebuild their own country, he has given the job to American-aligned multinational corporations who burn through American tax money at an alarming rate while reconstruction progresses painfully slowly. Even the ones who aren't taking up arms actively against us and simply want to get back to their own lives don't feel they can trust our President. If he is ever to achieve peace in Iraq and the Middle East, it will be the peace of the sword, of brute force. More Americans will die. Many more Iraqis will die. And resentment in the Middle East and the Muslim world will only grow.

He has broken faith with the American people. He has broken faith with the Iraqi people. He has broken faith with the world. Do you think he should force American will upon the entire world? That is what it would take, in my view.

John Kerry WILL be able to bring other nations to our side, by doing something George W. Bush seems completely incapable of doing: Listening to them. There is a difference between listening to our allies and bowing to them. The Bush campaign assures us that John Kerry seeks the latter. But good leadership requires diplomacy, not belligerence, not an attitude that says 'do as we say or you're our enemy.'

You claim an inability to guess 'where a Kerry presidency will lead' in regards to Iraq. I would expect a news organization to be better informed than this. His plan is hidden in plain sight, if you'd only take the time to look. Your generalizations about internationalists, anti-war activists and isolationists are condescending and shed no light on either John Kerry or your reasons for supporting President Bush.

You did an excellent job of parroting the Bush campaign talking points in regard to Kerry's comments about the 'coalition of the bribed and coerced.' Yet if you did some fairly cursory research about the time when Bush was assembling this coalition, you'd see that largely his assessment is correct. Many of the countries that were persuaded to join this coalition were initially extrememly reluctant, very UNwilling. And even those who joined did so in numbers that make it clear they were only willing, even after Bush Administration pressure was brought to bear, to make a token showing. They bear a burden alongside us, but it is a comparatively small one made only reluctantly, for the most part.

Again, Kerry CAN bring other nations to the table. France abandoned our efforts in Iraq only after Bush broke faith with the United Nations. They still work with us in Afghanistan. The German government has said it would be willing to discuss participating if John Kerry is elected. Your statement that 'It is not credible that (Kerry) ... can set that war on the right path' is simply erroneous. Kerry's contempt is not for other nations but for Bush's arm-twisting to drag those other nations into it.

To continue, you crow about Afghanistan. Yes, if democracy ever takes root there, it will be a great thing. But at this point, Karzai's government has at best a tenuous hold on the country. He rarely leaves the government complex because of the logistics and expense involved in keeping him safe. The elections could generally only be held in larger cities with significant US presence. Officials were actually PLEASED by the fact that some citizens had registered twice, three times, or more, to vote, yet this inaccuracy renders suspect the Bush administration's rosy assessments about how broad the spread of democracy was in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is one step away from anarchy in the hands of the Bush administration, and yet you think that he, who cannot admit the problems there and work to fix them, can do so?

You trust that Bush will keep his promise of no 'litmus test' for supreme judicial appointments. Look at the judges he's appointed so far and tell me how credible that promise is. Do it now. No, really, I'll wait. I'm very patient.

Your claims of the unreasonableness of environmentalists' opposition to President Bush are in my view, as you might predict, offensive. The only carrots Bush has offered companies is an EPA so dessicated by budget cuts it can't enforce the regulations that are in place, enactment of new regulations with Orwellian names that virtually give them free reign to destroy our environment and the promise to do more of the same with four more years. He has de-funded Superfund to the point where it's functionally a historical footnote while there are countless sites yet to clean up. He tried to remove clean water standards for mercury, only to bow at the last minute to overwhelming public pressure.

Clean Skies, beneath its fine-sounding proposals, realigns regulation to allow more, and more toxic, air pollution. Ditto his clean water proposals. The Healthy Forests Initiative makes forests 'healthier' by allowing logging companies to strip out older trees, which are the bedrock of a healthy forest ecology. This is to say nothing of the damage that will be done to old-growth forests by the heavy machinery roaring in and out of the areas. Your contempt for those who care about the environment (which is, incidentally, the majority of Americans) is both insulting and unwise.

On to No Child Left Behind ... Yes, indeed, it would be a grand scheme if our President actually cared to fund its mandates. As it is, school districts across the country have refused to participate because its cost is far greater than the assistance the government is able to offer, and because state and local governments, who have had to bear the burden of other federally-mandated programs the Bush Administration has seen fit not to fund, cannot afford to take up the slack.

As for the tax cuts, let me ask a hypothetical. Assume you are a very wealthy person. Perhaps you are. You have enough money to afford everything you need or want. If you receive extra money, where does that money go? Do you buy more with it? Of course not. You either sock it away or invest it. But unless you're investing in an IPO, that money is not actually going to work in the economy. If you're poor, though, and you receive a check, where does it go? To food, to rent, to the next car payment, to a new TV or DVD player or a new refrigerator to replace the one that's barely worked for years?

Which one is a greater economic stimulus?

President Clinton understood this. I'm not an economist, but I do understand one thing: Supply side economics doesn't work. Clinton's economic plan contributed to the longest-ever, largest-ever period of economic growth in America's history. Kerry's economic plan abandons what our president's own father ridiculed as 'voodoo economics' in place of an economic plan that builds growth in the only place it can come from: the lower and middle classes.

As for your closing two paragraphs, I can only say this: Yes, the country was amazingly united following the events of Sept. 11. From what I can see, Bush played no part in this and in fact moved quickly to consolidate his power base, to ridicule the political left and exile it from serious discussion about the country's direction. In domestic politics as in international politics, Bush and the Republicans have played the 'either you do what we say or you're our enemy' game. Because of the slim margin and dubious origins of his election victory in 2000, it wasn't until such a galvanizing event that he could move full-bore on his unilateral agenda. I blame this more than anything for the divisiveness in American politics today.

I really wanted to believe in him. After the election, I reasoned that he would have to spend his four years in the center. But he has waged war on Iraq, on the American poor, on our environment and on our civil rights. I have great respect for thoughtful, intelligent conservatives. He is not one. He stifles dissent at every turn and spends money like a debutante with daddy's credit card. These are not conservative values.

Your editorial is a mix of misinformation, Republican spin, disinformation, hopeful thinking and rationalization. Quit acting like court stenographers, open your eyes and grow some balls.

Thank you.
Chris Devine
Phoenix