Holy Shit!!! Just got this from my Republican father!!!

[quispquake]

He's coming around! He's coming around!!! He just sent this to me as an email...We've been having really heated arguments, and he still doesn't like Kerry, but he's REALLY beginning to hate Bush/Cheney...As I keep showing him how his opinion of Kerry has been manipulated by the media (he's a Fox news fan), he seems to be opening up...

On edit...thanks folks for showing me where to link to the original post...

GUESTWORDS: By E.L. Doctorow

The Unfeeling President

I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

More at: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0920-13.htm

[nostamj]

1. it was posted on common dreams... here's the link

it should probably be edited per DU copyright rules.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0920-13.htm

[proud patriot]

2. Here's the link to the article ..PLEASE EDIT to The 4 paragraphs rule

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0920-13.htm

[WillyT]

3. Malloy Read This In His 'Story Corner' Last Night, Excellent !!!

Thanks for posting it here!!!

:yourock:

[mctrotter5]

4. Thanks, excellent piece.

[blue neen]

5. Keep working on your father.

It does sound like he is beginning to hear you.

"(Bush) does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be."

[chelaque liberal]

6. Powerful. How can people not see this?

If I hadn't just hit every Republican I know with John Eisenhower's editorial I would email this.

[glitch]

7. It'll still be good next week! nt

:evilgrin:

[quispquake]

8. Yup, I'm spamming it out to everyone I know...

I've been feeling a bit down & powerless lately...my Dad sending me this kind of proves that I have to keep fighting & spreading the word...

In other words, it made my day :)

[proud patriot]

9. Fabulous , thanks for the edit perkypat23

:yourock:

[TahitiNut]

10. This has been posted SEVEN or more times on DU. (Now it's eight.)

Yes, it's an extraordinary column! I commend it to anyone.

There's an active discussion at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=75163

Prior threads are at ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2420455
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=76059
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2383809
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=1726206
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=905119
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=886073

[kerry-is-my-prez]

12. I haven't seen it before.....

I'm glad it was posted.

[zbdent]

11. What, he's never talked to Pickles?

Hmm, . . .

[grasswire]

13. send him John Eisenhower's letter

right NOW.

http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44657

Why I will vote for John Kerry for President
By JOHN EISENHOWER
Guest Commentary



THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 3½ years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.

Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we “always have.” We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.

As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.

Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership

MORE AT THE LINK --- read it and forward!