An example of opportunity lost

Editor:

In the weeks following 9/11 we experienced a national and international sense of unity and resolve unlike anything I've ever known. Our deep common love for our country and way of life rose up and united us. Our differences seemed insignificant; our sameness as Americans was all that counted.

Even our differences with other countries seemed to evaporate - remember how we were "all Americans" for a while? What a feeling!

And what fertile ground that was for a President with an intelligent and unifying vision of the world to take the lead - to cultivate those seeds of hope and compassion. What a powerful and healing that time might have been.

But what message did our "leader" bring forth from the ashes of 9/11? What was his "vision" for the future? "If you're not with us, you're against us."

What a criminal waste of good will. What a shortsighted, tragic example of opportunity lost. It is almost impossible to imagine a less constructive, less visionary, or less spiritual conclusion to draw in the face of so much practical and serviceable, national and international love. There was Love and the desire to heal working in all of us, and our leader chose to see it another way.

Or maybe it wasn't a choice; maybe that's all he is able to see, will ever be able to see. Maybe fear and boastful, swaggering threats are the only leadership tools he has.

Either way, this is not a "leader" that I look to follow.

As an American who is absolutely in love with her country, I have no interest in following an individual with a proven record of disregard for the opinions and sentiments of his own country and the rest of the world.

His arrogant, maverick attitude toward his own country, and toward a world that is literally dying for calm, thoughtful, and reverent teamwork, is deeply troubling.

I have no wish to entrust my country's future to this man's childish, blind, and one-sided impulses.

I know we can do better than this.

Claudia Cunningham

Polson