Fran

Dear @JDVance, You warned on Wednesday that the next few months would bring a lot of gaslighting. Then you wrote the first draft. Your post says any honest conversation must start with the war. Great. Since April you have been the administration’s lead negotiator, which makes you the owner of the track that turned a seven-week bombing campaign into an eight-month stalemate. Every week of ceasefire that was not a peace kept the Strait a question mark and kept diesel where eighty-seven percent of voters said they could feel it. Had you spent the spring arguing for the one hour the President says it would take instead of extending the stalemate, the war would have been over by summer, the pump would have said so, and you would be writing a different post. You promised no forever war. You then built a ceasefire with no exit, and sat on it for seven months. Tell voters what settlement you believed was achievable, what deadlines mattered, and what the administration planned to do if negotiations failed. You say you know a great many of the smartest people in politics, but not one of them has a name. (Tucker?) At least one of them cannot count (also Tucker?), because on your list of four things, items one and two are the same item, and item three is a bumper sticker. Item four is the only entry that names a country, and it is not the country we are at war with. (BTW I can guess where item four came from. Days ago @TuckerCarlson wrote that the administration was considering striking Pickaxe Mountain under pressure from Netanyahu, on the strength of Israeli intelligence. That is your fourth item, written out in full. No one had to poll for it. It was posted.) The poll itself. “Change our relationship to Israel” is broad enough to mean several incompatible things. What did those voters actually say? Did they spontaneously mention Israel? Were they offered a list? What percentage selected that answer? Were they objecting to this war, particular Israeli policies, American assistance, or the alliance itself? Why not publish the questionnaire, the sample, the percentages, and the crosstabs. By contrast, the networks published their exit polls. The issues voters were asked about were the economy, democracy, immigration, corruption, the Iran war and artificial intelligence. Israel did not need a column, because voters were not voting about Israel. The sole evidence that the American electorate rendered a verdict on Israel is a phone call between you and a man you will not identify. Contrast your response with @realDonaldTrump’s. Asked about your post, he acknowledged the war’s electoral cost and said he would make the decision again because long term it's the only answer. Agree or disagree, he defended his decision. In July, you yourself said America would have fought this war without Israeli influence. You explained that the president independently opposed an Iranian nuclear weapon—and that you agreed. Now your post finds room for an unnamed pollster’s undefined grievance against Israel, but none for an accounting of your own decisions as the administration’s lead negotiator. Name the pollster. Publish the questions and the results. Tell voters which decisions you supported, which you opposed, and which you would reverse. The President answered for his decision. That is leadership. If you want to be a leader, you need to be able to answer for yours.