Abstract

Letter From Ground Zero

The article suggests that the Democratic party is concealing its antiwar sentiment, a major cause that unites them, as presidential candidate John Kerry prepares for the 2004 election. The great majority of Democratic voters, according to polls, ardently oppose the war, yet by embracing the candidacy of John Kerry, who voted for the Congressional resolution authorizing the war and now wants to increase the number of American troops in Iraq, the party has made what appears to be a tactical decision to hide its faith. The result has been one of the most peculiar political atmospheres within a party in recent memory. What of the antiwar sentiment that is still in truth at the heart of most Democrats' anger? It has been displaced downward and outward, into the outlying precincts of American politics. The political class as a whole has proved incapable of taking responsibility for the future of the nation, and the education of the American public has been left to those without hope of office. Like a balloon that squeezed at the top expands at the base, opposition to the war increases the farther you get from John Kerry. By suffocating their own passion, Democrats may lose the energy that has brought them this far. They have confronted U.S. President George W. Bush's policy of denial with a politics of avoidance. Bush is adamant in error; they are feeble in dedication to truth. If strong and wrong is really the winning formula, Bush may be the public's choice.