George,

It didn’t take long for the Bush balloon that went up after the Republican Convention in New York to get punctured by the grim news from Iraq.

Pollsters variously gave Bush a three to nine point lead over Kerry coming out of New York. But that’s shriveled to a tie, apparently due to repetitive headlines of mayhem and slaughter, such as “47 Killed In Baghdad” Tuesday, etc.

Today’s "Investors Business Daily" survey shows Kerry and Bush tied at 47% in a two-man race among likely voters. Kerry is even ahead of Bush by two points among registered voters. And Republican pollster Rasmussen says Bush’s lead today is less than one percent, down from three percent a week ago.

Kerry declared the other day he is “taking the gloves off” in his campaign. Perhaps, harking back to President Truman’s underdog campaign in 1948, Democrats at rallies should hold up “Give ‘Em Hell, Kerry!” posters.

Truman quipped, “All I do is tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” And that’s not so far from what Kerry said in Toledo Tuesday. “They hide the truth about Iraq, they hide the truth about No Child Left Behind, they hide the truth about what’s happening in Medicare,” Kerry said, according to The New York Times.

The Times says Kerry’s repeated references to “truth” represent an effort “to clarify his case.” But they also strike at the heart of an Administration that doesn’t want to hear the truth and punishes those who speak it. Tell the truth about “yellowcake,” you’re out. Say how many troops it will take to pacify Iraq, you’re out. Tell the truth about the real cost of prescription drugs, you’re out.

Lying is practiced at the highest levels in this Republican hierarchy. Both the President and Vice President--contrary to all impartial reports on the subject--claim Saddam Hussein had ties to terrorists. This is a line, pollsters say, a majority of Americans swallowed. Perhaps it’s because people don’t want to believe their country made what Kerry called “a wrong war.” Nobody likes to feel they’ve been duped into paying taxes for a "preventive war," a euphemism for "aggression."

Still, the dishonesty and deception, so reminiscent of George Orwell’s “1984” novel about tyranny, have sent a shiver down the spines of millions of voters. Given the tragic news boiling out of Iraq, all Kerry has to do is remind the voters of the facts.

In 1916, President Wilson got re-elected in good part because “he kept us out of war.” He declared war in 1917 only after repeated assaults by German U-boats. If Republicans told the truth about Bush, they’d campaign on the slogan “He Got Us Into War.” As long as Kerry continues to bear down on Bush's tragic "wrong choice" in Iraq, he'll move into the White House next year.

- Sherwood Ross (electronic mail, September 15, 2004)