Farhad Manjoo says Bush won because "Kerry was a poor candidate". So I wrote an angry letter.

I knew there were going to be "Blame Kerry" articles ready for rollout if he lost, but I didn't expect Salon to join in.

John F. Kerry was not a poor candidate. He was an awesome candidate, and had he the chance, he would have been one of the great Presidents.

I started to watch Kerry during the primaries because he stood out for that quality which Mr. Manjoo accuses him of lacking: consistency. You see, in addition to being obsessed with geopolitics in general, I'm an environmentalist. While I don't work in that field and have never been what you can call an activist, this is something I care about and am well up on. There are very few American politicians of any consequence that can be called a friend of the environment, and Senator Kerry has been one for a long time.

That primary had 3 candidates with a very strong following. Newly political Gen-Xers loved Dean because his righteous anger connected with what they felt in their gut. Longtime, active progressives loved Kucinich because he was one of their own. Midwestern and Southern liberals loved John Edwards because his humble origin, eloquence and sincerity typifies everything they hold dear about America. Me, I didn't think any of them were quite ready to be President, especially in these messed-up times.

So with John Kerry's impressive LCV lifetime score in mind, I made a point of finding out about him. It's easy, Mr. Manjoo: you just avoid News Corp. and the clueless echo chamber that is the rest of mainstream press, and stick with the facts. When I did, I found someone who was born into privilege and was taught that it came with responsibilitites. I found someone who was skilled in diplomacy and fierce in his commitment to those under his care, extremely intelligent and exceptionally well-informed about American foreign policy. A son, husband (twice) and father to strong women that did interesting things with their lives. More importantly, I found someone whose political decisions over the decades were unusually consistent once the context of the decision was examined. I found the first candidate that legitimately inspired me.

There were mistakes made in the campaign. Kerry's thoughtfulness too often manifested itself as verbosity. He was reined in when he shouldn't have been (Swift Boatgate comes to mind). His pragmatic approach to gay marriage and his reasons for initially supporting the war in Iraq weren't articulated well.

And, oh, the mainstream media was actively collaborating with the White House, or asleep.

Despite that, Kerry managed to break through. It was sad how surprised everyone was by his debate performance. People suddenly noticed that Kerry seemed more like the President than the sorta-actual President. When he took the stage in front of huge crowds in the last days of the campaign, he never disappointed.

And then it was over.

John Kerry did not fail the progressives and the centrists, the Democratic party, John Edwards, or America. It is clear that the American electorate did not give John Kerry the decisive margin of victory that would have defeated the White House' campaign of smear, fearmongering and vote tampering. Roughly half of this country's voters decided to be ass-backwards and programmed. A shameful percentage didn't care enough to vote. The system of democracy that John Kerry has always believe and invested in despite its flaws failed *him*.

At least 59 million Americans chose to keep Bush and his reign of terror. They rejected the chance to put an extraordinary President in the White House. Even worse, they embraced the lie that an honorable man was a loser and a waffler. Then again, it looks like Bush supporters aren't the only ones that believe the smear.

The fitness of John F. Kerry the candidate was never in question. The fitness of the American people to govern itself was, and the answer seems more and more doubtful.