The fear in the eyes of the people

Dear Mr. President:

Since 9/11, I have realized many things about this great country and it's people. I have found that we are an arrogant lot. Not towards the world as many say, but internally. I was in NYC the day of the attack. I lived the aftermath, saw the damage, saw the fear in the eyes of the people of NYC. I felt the embrace of the world and the country for the wounds the nation suffered on that day. But, as an arrogant people, we look internally to lay blame, and how it found it's way to you, I have no idea. But our arrogance persists. Your polices have kept additional attacks from US soil, and the question asked is “Are we safer?” I think the answer is one the arrogant detractors really do not understand. We now KNOW we are in a war. Safer? War isn't safe, but awareness certainly is better than blissful ignorance.

I'm not sure what has happened to the United States of America. After Pearl Harbor we realized we had a mission. Today, the media chooses to report only it's slant on the news. It chooses and backs candidates in a secretive way.

I think, Mr. President, you are a light in a very dark time for our country. Your simple clarity of purpose is the direction needed. Thank you for leading a nation, which at times, loses it's way due to it's own arrogance.

Ken
Age 47
NYC, NY

I saw you standing on those ruins

Dear George:

I'm an American who lives in Prague, a city that was once behind the Iron Curtain. When I meet someone for the first time, they invariably tell me they love the United States, yet despise you and the war you have chosen. With all due respect for one with so much blood on his hands, I must agree.

I witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center in a deserted bar along with two Canadian friends and we pondered the future over whiskey. Later, I saw you standing on those ruins, a mass grave with bodies not yet buried, waving a tiny plastic flag and blustering like a TV evangelist. I wanted to put my hand on the screen and be healed, but it came back stained with he blood of innocents.

The righteous fury and grief from the attacks were used to mask a war of empire in Iraq that has cost hundreds of American and thousands of Iraqi lives, all equal in death. And still you lie. I'm not a Christian, but I think I know your God better than you, Mr. President, and when you pass from this world I think He will not abide the sight of you, war criminal.

Sincerely,

Jonathan
Age 32
Prague, Czech Republic
(Hometown: Buckner, MO)

A little pulpit-pounding

Dear George:

I want to see a little pulpit-pounding. I want you to shout down the homosexuals, the abortionists. I want you to stand up, stand up for Jesus, in the words of that old hymn. I know you are a Christian, trying to keep Islam from going to war against us (they hate us, you know), while protecting tiny Israel - but now, and after the November election, I want to see a little pulpit-pounding on the issues that are important to your support base - authentic Christians!

:-) Don
Senior Citizen
Oklahoma

Read your Bible

Dear George:

You don't have time to be President for another four years. You need to get your own house in order.

You've made a point of talking about how Christian you are, but from what I've seen you seem to have some serious conceptual problems with this. The only other interpretation that seems possible is that you're a bare-faced liar. You need to read your Bible a few more times, for the sake of your own immortal soul. You need to do some serious praying.

I would like to emphasize that I don't say these things to be hurtful. I don't really know that much about politics. I do know what world opinion says about you, and that worries me for the sake of my children. Billions of people, coming around to the same opinion...that's usually not wrong.

Let it go. Go read your Bible. Really.

Sincerely,

Patrick
Age 55
Salt Lake City, Utah