New York Times endorsement of John Kerry

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New York Times endorsement of John Kerry

Postby Mike Hunte » Sun Oct 17, 2004 2:06 am

I couldn't have said it better myself:

October 17, 2004
John Kerry for President

Senator John Kerry goes toward the election with a base that is built more on opposition to George W. Bush than loyalty to his own candidacy. But over the last year we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo. We like what we've seen. He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent.

We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry's wide knowledge and clear thinking - something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. And while Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.



There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure. Nearly four years ago, after the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency, Mr. Bush came into office amid popular expectation that he would acknowledge his lack of a mandate by sticking close to the center. Instead, he turned the government over to the radical right.

Mr. Bush installed John Ashcroft, a favorite of the far right with a history of insensitivity to civil liberties, as attorney general. He sent the Senate one ideological, activist judicial nominee after another. He moved quickly to implement a far-reaching anti-choice agenda including censorship of government Web sites and a clampdown on embryonic stem cell research. He threw the government's weight against efforts by the University of Michigan to give minority students an edge in admission, as it did for students from rural areas or the offspring of alumni.

When the nation fell into recession, the president remained fixated not on generating jobs but rather on fighting the right wing's war against taxing the wealthy. As a result, money that could have been used to strengthen Social Security evaporated, as did the chance to provide adequate funding for programs the president himself had backed. No Child Left Behind, his signature domestic program, imposed higher standards on local school systems without providing enough money to meet them.

If Mr. Bush had wanted to make a mark on an issue on which Republicans and Democrats have long made common cause, he could have picked the environment. Christie Whitman, the former New Jersey governor chosen to run the Environmental Protection Agency, came from that bipartisan tradition. Yet she left after three years of futile struggle against the ideologues and industry lobbyists Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had installed in every other important environmental post. The result has been a systematic weakening of regulatory safeguards across the entire spectrum of environmental issues, from clean air to wilderness protection.



The president who lost the popular vote got a real mandate on Sept. 11, 2001. With the grieving country united behind him, Mr. Bush had an unparalleled opportunity to ask for almost any shared sacrifice. The only limit was his imagination.

He asked for another tax cut and the war against Iraq.

The president's refusal to drop his tax-cutting agenda when the nation was gearing up for war is perhaps the most shocking example of his inability to change his priorities in the face of drastically altered circumstances. Mr. Bush did not just starve the government of the money it needed for his own education initiative or the Medicare drug bill. He also made tax cuts a higher priority than doing what was needed for America's security; 90 percent of the cargo unloaded every day in the nation's ports still goes uninspected.

Along with the invasion of Afghanistan, which had near unanimous international and domestic support, Mr. Bush and his attorney general put in place a strategy for a domestic antiterror war that had all the hallmarks of the administration's normal method of doing business: a Nixonian obsession with secrecy, disrespect for civil liberties and inept management.

American citizens were detained for long periods without access to lawyers or family members. Immigrants were rounded up and forced to languish in what the Justice Department's own inspector general found were often "unduly harsh" conditions. Men captured in the Afghan war were held incommunicado with no right to challenge their confinement. The Justice Department became a cheerleader for skirting decades-old international laws and treaties forbidding the brutal treatment of prisoners taken during wartime.

Mr. Ashcroft appeared on TV time and again to announce sensational arrests of people who turned out to be either innocent, harmless braggarts or extremely low-level sympathizers of Osama bin Laden who, while perhaps wishing to do something terrible, lacked the means. The Justice Department cannot claim one major successful terrorism prosecution, and has squandered much of the trust and patience the American people freely gave in 2001. Other nations, perceiving that the vast bulk of the prisoners held for so long at Guantánamo Bay came from the same line of ineffectual incompetents or unlucky innocents, and seeing the awful photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, were shocked that the nation that was supposed to be setting the world standard for human rights could behave that way.



Like the tax cuts, Mr. Bush's obsession with Saddam Hussein seemed closer to zealotry than mere policy. He sold the war to the American people, and to Congress, as an antiterrorist campaign even though Iraq had no known working relationship with Al Qaeda. His most frightening allegation was that Saddam Hussein was close to getting nuclear weapons. It was based on two pieces of evidence. One was a story about attempts to purchase critical materials from Niger, and it was the product of rumor and forgery. The other evidence, the purchase of aluminum tubes that the administration said were meant for a nuclear centrifuge, was concocted by one low-level analyst and had been thoroughly debunked by administration investigators and international vetting. Top members of the administration knew this, but the selling went on anyway. None of the president's chief advisers have ever been held accountable for their misrepresentations to the American people or for their mismanagement of the war that followed.

The international outrage over the American invasion is now joined by a sense of disdain for the incompetence of the effort. Moderate Arab leaders who have attempted to introduce a modicum of democracy are tainted by their connection to an administration that is now radioactive in the Muslim world. Heads of rogue states, including Iran and North Korea, have been taught decisively that the best protection against a pre-emptive American strike is to acquire nuclear weapons themselves.



We have specific fears about what would happen in a second Bush term, particularly regarding the Supreme Court. The record so far gives us plenty of cause for worry. Thanks to Mr. Bush, Jay Bybee, the author of an infamous Justice Department memo justifying the use of torture as an interrogation technique, is now a federal appeals court judge. Another Bush selection, J. Leon Holmes, a federal judge in Arkansas, has written that wives must be subordinate to their husbands and compared abortion rights activists to Nazis.

Mr. Bush remains enamored of tax cuts but he has never stopped Republican lawmakers from passing massive spending, even for projects he dislikes, like increased farm aid.

If he wins re-election, domestic and foreign financial markets will know the fiscal recklessness will continue. Along with record trade imbalances, that increases the chances of a financial crisis, like an uncontrolled decline of the dollar, and higher long-term interest rates.

The Bush White House has always given us the worst aspects of the American right without any of the advantages. We get the radical goals but not the efficient management. The Department of Education's handling of the No Child Left Behind Act has been heavily politicized and inept. The Department of Homeland Security is famous for its useless alerts and its inability to distribute antiterrorism aid according to actual threats. Without providing enough troops to properly secure Iraq, the administration has managed to so strain the resources of our armed forces that the nation is unprepared to respond to a crisis anywhere else in the world.



Mr. Kerry has the capacity to do far, far better. He has a willingness - sorely missing in Washington these days - to reach across the aisle. We are relieved that he is a strong defender of civil rights, that he would remove unnecessary restrictions on stem cell research and that he understands the concept of separation of church and state. We appreciate his sensible plan to provide health coverage for most of the people who currently do without.

Mr. Kerry has an aggressive and in some cases innovative package of ideas about energy, aimed at addressing global warming and oil dependency. He is a longtime advocate of deficit reduction. In the Senate, he worked with John McCain in restoring relations between the United States and Vietnam, and led investigations of the way the international financial system has been gamed to permit the laundering of drug and terror money. He has always understood that America's appropriate role in world affairs is as leader of a willing community of nations, not in my-way-or-the-highway domination.

We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It's on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.

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Postby Rspaight » Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:54 am

This is the money quote:

The president who lost the popular vote got a real mandate on Sept. 11, 2001. With the grieving country united behind him, Mr. Bush had an unparalleled opportunity to ask for almost any shared sacrifice. The only limit was his imagination.

He asked for another tax cut and the war against Iraq.


Hell, *I* was ready to back the president after 9/11. He blew it. Plain and simple. He. Blew. It.

Ryan
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Postby Beatlesfan03 » Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:12 pm

Rspaight wrote:This is the money quote:

The president who lost the popular vote got a real mandate on Sept. 11, 2001. With the grieving country united behind him, Mr. Bush had an unparalleled opportunity to ask for almost any shared sacrifice. The only limit was his imagination.

He asked for another tax cut and the war against Iraq.


Hell, *I* was ready to back the president after 9/11. He blew it. Plain and simple. He. Blew. It.

Ryan


Agreed. Once he started talking about the axis of evil, I knew we were in trouble.
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Postby Ron » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:10 am

Rspaight wrote:Hell, *I* was ready to back the president after 9/11.

Ryan

Really? No, I mean it. Really?
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Postby Gee Oh Are Tea » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:37 am

I can't find the atricle right now (Toronto Star from this past Sunday) that showed polls taken in 10 countries found that people in those countries overwehlmingly still liked Americans and also overwhelmingly hated the Bush Administration (the one exception was Israel, which is understandable given Bush's policies toward the Palestinians). Here in Canada, polls showed that Canadians favoured Kerry over Bush by about 75 to 22.

It's something I often wonder about when I see that Bush is slightly leading Kerry in the US polls. Are Americans aware of how much they (as a nation, not as a people) are hated around the world right now because of the Bush Administration. Are they so blinded by this "threat of terror" that they don't care about losing membership in the world community. I think it's because your media refuses to acknowledge this. We have Americans who come to Toronto and are utterly shocked by the amount of anti-Americanism that is present here (we're about 80 miles by road to the border). The mind boggles.

Cliff

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Postby lukpac » Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:06 am

Gee Oh Are Tea wrote:It's something I often wonder about when I see that Bush is slightly leading Kerry in the US polls. Are Americans aware of how much they (as a nation, not as a people) are hated around the world right now because of the Bush Administration. Are they so blinded by this "threat of terror" that they don't care about losing membership in the world community. I think it's because your media refuses to acknowledge this. We have Americans who come to Toronto and are utterly shocked by the amount of anti-Americanism that is present here (we're about 80 miles by road to the border). The mind boggles.


The general thought - especially from the Republican party - seems to be "we're the US. We'll do what we want. We don't need the world to 'like' us."
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Postby Rspaight » Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:37 pm

Ron wrote:
Rspaight wrote:Hell, *I* was ready to back the president after 9/11.

Ryan

Really? No, I mean it. Really?


Yes, really. I had little expectation that the sort of intelligent, measured, strong response needed would emerge from the Bush White House, but I hoped it would. I wanted our government to respond in a way that would undercut support for terror groups and open new avenues for addressing the problems of the third world. Just like "only Nixon could go to China," I had a glimmer of hope that Bush, who campaigned so heavily on the "uniter not a divider rhetoric," would seize the moment and do something truly unexpected, something unconventional, something statesmanlike. After all, it was well known that he governed from the gut, not the head -- maybe his gut would tell him to do the right thing.

In those first few weeks, it looked like it could go either way. There was the cowboy talk: "smoke 'em out of their holes," "dead or alive," the bullhorn thing, but there was also a lot of moderation coming out of Bush as well -- calls against anti-Arab-American violence, the Washington Cathedral Service, the lack of immediate knee-jerk blitzkrieg. I didn't really have a problem with the Afghan invasion -- that was needed and done competently, at least until we pulled forces out for Iraq and bungled the capture of Osama.

But by mid-2002, it was obvious that Bush was going to exploit 9/11 for his own (and PNAC's) pre-9/11 policy goals, rather than utilize it for real progress. The rush to the Iraq war, the destruction of the post-9/11 international goodwill and the disastrous invasion just sealed the deal. Bush had a chance to lead, and instead he went power-mad.

Ryan
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Postby Rspaight » Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:41 pm

lukpac wrote:The general thought - especially from the Republican party - seems to be "we're the US. We'll do what we want. We don't need the world to 'like' us."


Yep. People aren't aware of it because they simply don't care and tune it out. In fact, I think that for some knowing "foreigners" don't approve only makes them dig in harder.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Postby Mike Hunte » Tue Oct 19, 2004 3:27 pm

Gee Oh Are Tea wrote:
It's something I often wonder about when I see that Bush is slightly leading Kerry in the US polls.

Cliff


Don't be misled by these so-called polls. Most are conducted in uncontrolled environments, with each polling group having their own agenda. Both candidates are actually DEAD EVEN in Zogby's poll as of 10/17 -- his being a weighted, 3-day running poll.

Furthermore, Kerry is actually LEADING in 12 of the 16 key battleground states (i.e. needed electoral votes), according to Zogby. Though, admittedly, most are within the margin of error.

This, of course, is something the mainstream media doesn't want the people to know. When Kerry got his bump a few weeks ago, most news outlets simply ignored it, or found a poll that was more sympathetic to their "Bush is ahead" agenda. Then, it was simply a "virtual tie" in their reports.

Perfect example of hen-house media tactics. All of the Clear Channel radio affiliates used the ABC instant poll when measuring the third debate. The ONLY major poll that showed Bush and Kerry in a tie (all others showed an easy Kerry victory - some as much as 80/20). What ABC and Clear Channel (and any other media outlet that quoted the poll)) failed to mention was that the polling audience was composed of THIRTY PERCENT more Republicans than Dems! - hardly an accurate weighing methodology. "Fair and balanced" indeed!

It's the old self-fulfilling prophecy model. The Republican-owned media is hoping to scare away the Dems from the polls, trying to convince them that it's already over.

DON'T LISTEN! KEEP FIGHTING! SPREAD THE TRUTH!

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Postby Gee Oh Are Tea » Tue Oct 19, 2004 6:14 pm

Mike Hunte wrote:Don't be misled by these so-called polls. Most are conducted in uncontrolled environments, with each polling group having their own agenda. Both candidates are actually DEAD EVEN in Zogby's poll as of 10/17 -- his being a weighted, 3-day running poll.


But that's what so scary for non-Americans. Either Americans are total idiots or Kerry is really a bad candidate (or a bit of both). I mean Bush is undoubtedly the worst US president in history - it shouldn't even be close. Not only is he a buffoon (and his Administration "sinister" to say the least) but he has broken international laws by invading Iraq, killing close to 20,000 Iraqis in the process. If he was the leader of a non-first world country, he'd be in The Hague tomorrow on War Crimes charges. This is not liberal bombast.

The fact is, a sizable number of Americans are either bamboozled or scared shitless by his whole "terrist" (sic) crap, and Kerry (in trying to sound tough or patriotic) has failed to seize on it. The fact that he was on the defensive about the "global test" thing was incredible. Of course, you need to pass a "global test" to invade sovereign nations. That's what happens in a civilized world. If Bush thinks that Finland has WMD's to give to Al Quaeda, does he just invade Helsinki tomorrow?? And Americans agree with this shit about getting the "terrists" (sic) on their soil?? There are no terrorists in Iraq - there are "insurgents" trying to repel an occupying force and its installed puppet government (which Kerry also failed to seize upon).

This election is really Bush vs non-Bush. I think Bush will win, further isolating the US and (unfortunately) probably leading to more terrorism on US soil. Americans have seemingly indicated that they're not looking for a real President (be it the buffoon incumbent or his reluctant opponent). In ANY other country, this would be a landslide against Bush. The US is going to be the laughing stock of the world on November 3.

Cliff

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Postby czeskleba » Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:55 pm

What amazes me most about this election is how Bush has managed to make the issue of his job performance totally irrelevant. His approval rating is relatively low, the majority of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing, yet he still has high chance of winning the election. Somehow Bush has managed to convince people that the fact he is doing a lousy job should not have any bearing on whether he's re-elected or not. It's like Americans are applying a "special olympics" criterion to the election: People think Bush means well and is trying hard, so we should reward him for that even though his policies are a resounding failure.

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Postby Rspaight » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:29 pm

czeskleba wrote:People think Bush means well and is trying hard, so we should reward him for that even though his policies are a resounding failure.


"I made some tough decisions."
"tough"
"It's hard work."
"It's incredibly hard."
"a lot of really good people working hard"
"It's hard work."
"It's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I see on the TV screens how hard it is."
"the hard work"
"It is hard work."
"It is hard work"
"It's hard work"
"it's hard work"
"a lot of hard work"
"It's the hardest decision a president makes."
"I understand how hard it is"
"It's hard work."
"Everybody knows it's hard work "
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Postby czeskleba » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:35 pm

I read a letter to the editor in my local paper today (the Seattle PI) and the gist of it was that poor old Bush is working incredibly hard every day to fight terrorism, while Kerry is just relaxing, cruising around the country picking at Bush's record. The Bush strategy may seem obvious to us, but it clearly works... repeat something often enough, and the majority of people will start to believe it's true, even if they haven't been given any proof. I don't think the Democrats will win another Presidential election until they grasp the core concepts of simplicity and repetition as campaign strategies.

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Postby Mike Hunte » Wed Oct 20, 2004 6:01 am

czeskleba wrote: I don't think the Democrats will win another Presidential election until they grasp the core concepts of simplicity and repetition as campaign strategies.


A major part of the "problem" is that the mainstream, corporate controlled media simply won't give them a chance to put forth that repeated and unified message. They won't play the Kerry soundbites and *his* three-word catchprases (and, yes, he does make them too) in the same way that they absolutely hammer home the Bushisms.

Case in point. I listen to a lot of sports radio so I'm forced to suffer with the "news" ramblings of the local Clear Channel affiliate. Whenever they do their campaign updates, they always (and I mean ALWAYS) frame the story the exact same way. It always starts with Kerry on the campaign trail and an accusation soundbite toward the Bush Administration. They then cut to the Bush soundbite that appears to "answer" the accusation (usually not even pertaining to anything directly - just the formentioned talking point catchphrase), giving the appearance of him having the final word...the trump card so to speak. Their other technique is to give a choice Bush soundbite (something where he really huffs & puffs and sounds "angry"), and then simply mention that Kerry was on the trail today also - this time with no soundbite at all!

But, you know what, it doesn't matter. This talk of the Dems can't win an election until blah, blah, blah, is just want they want -- disunity and resignation. We're playing right into their (and the media's) hands if we let them have the last word.

Like I said....keep fighting! Talk to people on a grassroots level. Guess what, it really works. Many are simply ill-informed. I actually spoke with a 19 year old kid today who thought that Bush was the pro-choice candidate!!!! We have the facts (and many important polls too!) on *our* side. They have muck, distortion, and a fractured, fucked-up four years that will one day be historically mentioned in the same breath as Hoover...if their lucky.

We have to be our own media - lawn signs, bumper stickers, discussion with friends and family...whatever. Many will even jump on for the ride if they *think* it's the winning team. The old, "I wanna go to work the day after the election and tell co-worker Joe that *my* candidate won" - the self-fulfilling prophecy again.

STAY FOCUSED AND POSITIVE!

KEEP FIGHTING!

PS - And just remember folks, regarding the polls again, that Bush had a 5-8 pt. lead on the eve of the 2000 election and ended up LOSING THE POPULAR VOTE!

Did I mention already....KEEP FIGHTING!

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Postby lukpac » Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:37 am

There's still hope (see below).

And as for how the Republicans lie and deceive, it's AMAZING that they can assert with a straight face that Kerry is using "scare tactics". This coming from the same administration that claims "the biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us - biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans."

Reuters Poll: Bush and Kerry Still in Dead Heat
Wed Oct 20, 2004 07:01 AM ET

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry remain tied for the third consecutive day in the race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

Less than two weeks before the Nov. 2 election, Bush and Kerry were deadlocked at 46 percent in the latest three-day tracking poll. They were tied at 45 percent the previous two days.

About 6 percent of likely voters are still undecided between the president and the Massachusetts senator, who clashed on Tuesday over Kerry's claims that Bush wants to privatize the Social Security retirement system. Bush accused Kerry of "scare tactics."

"With Bush and Kerry now tied among seniors, small wonder that Kerry is pushing hard on Social Security," said pollster John Zogby. He said Democrat Al Gore pressed the same issue in the late stages of the 2000 campaign and came out ahead among senior voters -- but lost the race to Bush.

The number of likely voters who thought Bush deserved re-election was 46 percent and the number who wanted someone new was 50 percent. Only 44 percent rated Bush's presidential performance as excellent or good, while 55 percent said it was fair or poor.

Kerry led 52 percent to 38 percent among newly registered voters, an unpredictable swing population that could become a huge factor if they vote in large numbers.

Bush spent the day in Florida while Kerry traveled to Pennsylvania and Ohio. Those three states, with a combined 68 electoral votes, are the biggest remaining prizes among 10 swing states still considered toss-ups.

The poll of 1,213 likely voters was taken Sunday through Tuesday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. The rolling poll will continue through Nov. 1 -- the day before the election.

A tracking poll combines the results of three consecutive nights of polling, then drops the first night's results each time a new night is added. It allows pollsters to record shifts in voter sentiment as they happen.

The poll showed independent candidate Ralph Nader, blamed by some Democrats for drawing enough votes from Al Gore to cost him the election in 2000, with the support of 1.2 percent of likely voters.
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