The Chaff

I was an Anybody-but-Bush-er until I read several articles on the BCCI investigation. Your commitment, bravery, and tenaciousness in the face of administration opposition and sabotage really won me over. When I read how your own party leaders warned you off and threatened to end your career and that didn’t stop you, how you transferred the investigation to the NY DA to avoid it getting killed, how you stood up against the administration in public and in private, I became a loyal follower.

That–more than your war record, more than the veteran’s group you founded, more than anything else–made me decide you were the right man for America right now. I’d forgotten what if felt like to honestly believe a politician cared more for his country than for his own party or career or bank account. I’d forgotten that men like you actually still run for office.

So, why, why didn’t you let the rest of America see the man who made this too-long-discouraged cynic have hope again? Why didn’t you take the fact that you were fighting Al Qaeda before they were Al Qaeda and smear it in the face of that arrogant, smirking criminal who laughed at our Constitution and raped our treasury since day 1? Why didn’t you point out that Goerge W. was working with the criminals you were trying to bring down while his father was winking and looking the other way?

I cried the day you conceded. I’ve cried many days since then as I’ve watched the man who swindled millions of dollars from my city and ruin my state’s education system go to work on my country.   I cried when his incompetant cronies shrugged off the suffering and death of my countrymen, and I cry every time the administration’s political patronage costs a soldier his life.

You were–you are–the better man: smarter, braver, more honorable, more qualified, overall more worthy. Why didn’t you let everyone else see what I saw?