We've had our differences, John, but you are still our last best hope for saving the nation. We need your help to bring the truth about our nation's attack on Iraq to the attention of the American people.

Many of us in the progressive community voted for the screamer (Howard Dean) or the peacenik (Dennis Kucinich) and not you in last year's Democratic primary (could it have only been last year?). We gave our money to those campaigns and worked for them too because those men better represented what kind of leader we thought the nation needed a leader who was unequivocally against the needless attack on Iraq, a leader who would get us out while our reputation as an honorable nation was still salvageable.

But when you became the Democratic Party nominee, we gave you our all because we knew how high the stakes were; everything we treasured about this nation had been punched out and needed to be made right again.

Democracies don't engage in wars of choice. Democracies don't hold people in detention without charge or trial. Only by making the Bush Administration an anathema, only by committing to backing out of Iraq immediately in whatever way made sense for both us and the people we had attacked could America regain a chance to be the superpower that modeled democracy for the world, not aggression.

We weren't happy with your equivocation on Iraq and we were really miffed at your Swift Boat stumble, yet, we rallied behind you.

Even those of us who lived in safe blue states spent our weekends in swing or red states, knocking on doors, working phone banks, stuffing envelops, collecting campaign donations - all those retail political jobs so necessary to victory. And on Election Day, we were there turning out swing state voters, for you, John Kerry. In large part we did this because we were convinced that even though you weren't saying so during the campaign, once elected, you'd find a way out of Iraq.

And the reason we believed that, Mr. Kerry, is because we had witnessed the courage you repeatedly demonstrated to speak truth to power when you'd returned from Vietnam a young veteran of an immoral war.

It's time now, John, to repay our faith in you by finding your courage again. We need that courage Senator Kerry, and we need it now.

We are thrilled that you have decided to raise the Downing Street Memo with your colleagues in the Senate. We are gratified that you have criticized the mainstream American media for completing failing "we the people" by barely acknowledging the existence of evidence that shows that the Bush Administration misled the nation into war and made a chump out of the United Nations.

But Mr. Kerry, never doubt that the apologists for the Bush/Cheney agenda are ready for you, waiting to ambush you with your own words, just as they did in the Swift Boat campaign. This time, Senator, you've got to counterpunch quickly and not by defending yourself or whatever words they'll use against you. This time, Mr. Kerry, you've got to defend all American citizens against those who would lie to us. And you have to do it persistently and passionately, not for any personal gain but because you are committed to ending an immoral war, no matter what the personal cost. Remember Vietnam now, John, and find that courage we all thought so admirable then.

You didn't win the presidency in 2004, Mr. Kerry, but you could still win back our democracy. You could help to end an immoral war, John. You've done it before.

Know that we're here, ready to give our all to help you.

Cynthia J. Bogard (Cynthia.J.Bogard@hofstra.edu) is a professor of sociology at Hofstra University in New York.