Roger

I’m glad you are feeling more upbeat, and hope all is well with your family. Thanks for the time and effort you expended on the convention, and also for what you are doing with this blog here. In your own way you are helping to change the tone and the thrust of political and social discourse in this country, and I think you deserve the appreciation of your countrymen for your efforts. Bucking the opinions of your (former?) friends and colleagues is never easy, especially I think for Democrats.

As you may have gathered by now, in the Republican party there is a rather more robust level of dialog and disagreement than you may be used to. I doubt that very many people in the GOP are in complete support of everything Bush and the party stand for. I know I’m not. But politics is ultimately about coming to some acceptable level of compromise with your fellow citizens, and it would be churlish of any of us to put our own favorite cause before the good of the country as a whole.

I suspect many of the Democrats problems stem from their inability to take any criticism, whether from without or within. WIth any luck, the Republicans will never degenerate to that level.

I look forward to reading your “second thoughts” book. I found “Radical Son” fascinating, if in need of editing. Perhaps you can share your thoughts on it with us sometime.