A Message From Al

I wanted to post this message from Al Franken because I think everyone should read it:





MESSAGE FROM AL



Anytime you lose like this, there’s a certain amount of Wednesday-morning quarterbacking and woulda-coulda-shoulda. I have no regrets myself, but as I look back at Kerry’s campaign, there are a couple of points where, if he had it all to do over again, I think he should have done it differently.



For example, in the first debate, Kerry announced that he would put our national security decisions in the hands of France. He said very explicitly that we would have to pass a global test before using force. I think a lot of us watching at the time thought that that was a mistake.



Also, of course, the flip-flops, especially those about Iraq. Voting, as you know, for the war, then against it, for it, then against it-having, as Sean Hannity said, literally 80 different positions. I wish he could have chosen one position and stuck with it.



Kerry’s decision to ban the Bible. That was a huge mistake, especially in very Christian areas. That might have gone over fine in atheist communities, but it cost him big everywhere else.



And then proposing a health care system that would impose an enormous federal bureaucracy and give medical decisions to paper-pushers in Washington, and in France.



And going back to Vietnam, the way he lied about what happened, inflicted those wounds on himself to get those medals, and then threw them out-I think that was a mistake. Of course, that was a mistake that he made back then, decades ago. But he could have been more honest about it now.



A lot of people talk about Bush’s record, and what he might do in the next term, but what this really comes down to is character. And ceding your doctor’s authority to France, and the flip-flops, and shooting himself in the leg to win a medal-I guess those things just overcame the awful, failed presidency of George W. Bush.



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You know I wouldn’t mind losing an election if it were an honest disagreement, based on facts, over values and policy. But that’s not what happened. A large majority of Bush supporters went to the polls believing things that were false. For example, any of the above. They believed lies about Kerry, and they believed lies about Iraq, and they believed lies about Bush.



We’re not going to heal this country as long as we have a president who won’t be accountable, who won’t tell the truth, who is willing to campaign with a vicious dishonesty that is unprecedented.



After Barry Goldwater was crushed by Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the right decided to take a long view. They poured literally billions of dollars into creating the right-wing infrastructure that dominates our politics today. They built up the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Media Research Center, and now Fox News Channel-and many other organizations, above and below the radar. Though they won the White House in 1968, it took them thirty years to reach their ascendancy in 1994.



Our side just started. Air America went on the air seven months ago. Normally, incumbent presidents either win by a landslide or lose by a landslide, and a year or two ago, people thought it would be an overwhelming Bush victory. It wasn’t. For an incumbent wartime president, this was a close race. And we’ve created a movement to take this country back. Even though we didn’t do it this time, I believe that we will still do it.



The other side wants us to get demoralized, but we are going to fight. We are going to fight every step of the way.



Round two starts now.





-Al Franken