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I was watching CNN today and heard a clip of Dubya saying the following about John Kerry (and I'm paraphrasing): "He has called the war in Iraq a colossal failure.  He has called it the wrong war.  How can we expect someone to win a war he doesn't believe we should be fighting?"
Let me draw a parallel for you on this one.  Say I'm Student Council President at Flemington High School in New Jersey.  I decide - without the permission of my classmates, the administration, or any of the other school in my county - to use the entirety of budget to buy dump trucks which will pour five tons of rat poop on North Arlington High's football field.  We send many of our own students to run the operation, drive the trucks...etc.  Unfortunately, NAHS doesn't want the rat poop so they fight back and a battle ensues.  Those who voted for me because I'm a jerkoff and they thougt it'd be "funny" still support me.  Everyone else is apalled.
Now here comes Bob Tawilliger and he wants my job.  And what's my argument against his being able to do the job: he can not finish the unbelievably asinine rat poop job. Why?  Because he thought it was inappropriate. [Editors Note: I had no idea what Jeff was talking about to this point either, but just stick with it.]
When Dick Cheney says every Iraqi he's talked to - "to a man" - has thanked him for the liberation, you have to go with Jon Stewart and wonder if he talked to any of the ones holding large missiles over their shoulders.  I don't make the Iraq war the center of my voting decision but can these guys please stop with the "everything is peachy" attitude.  It's condescending, patronizing and just downright delusional.
They call John Kerry a coward.  They say John Kerry does not stand with his convictions.  Ask the John Kerry who went and fought the Vietnam war how cowardly he is.  Ask the John Kerry who stood ALONE in front of the government to protest that way about convictions.  I am not a John Kerry lover.  I don't think he's going to win and POOF everything will be better.  But sometimes you reach a breaking point.
At the rish of sounding like a political ad, here's what a John Kerry vote means to me.  It means electing a smart, capable leader.  It means not having to be embarrassed every time your president decides to appear in public.  It means we can again be a country among the world and not a country "above" the world.
It means Dick Cheney goes back to Halliburton where he belongs.  It means Don Rumsfeld can continue decaying and John Ashcroft can resume his throne in Hades.
It means the era of the scary binary: right/wrong, good/evil...is over.  The discussion can begin.  Conversation, debates, ideologies...the hallmark of being a liberal.  The reason we do what we do.  The right to think and speak our minds.  I hate to sound like an ACLU hack-in-training, but this election has become more than the choosing of a leader.  A couple of supreme court justices from now, "liberal" may mean nothing more than "anarchist."
John Kerry does this crazy thing called flip-flopping.  Some people in the real world call this "humility" or "admitting your mistakes."  Republicans have used this as their #1 attack of the man.  Aren't you shocked they're so steadfast on the Iraq war?
I'm voting for Kerry so I can be proud of America again.  The way I was every time I heard Bill Clinton speak.  I don't get the same rush from Johnny, but who knows, after Tuesday night I just might.
Jeff Hughes is a guest writer for NoahBrier.com because no matter how much he hates the site, occasionally he has to make his thoughts public.